Events Calendar

7pm -After the Airlift: Examining the Afghan Refugee Crisis Post-Taliban Takeover

About the Program: In this conclusion to the International Education Summit, Eric Schwartz of Refugees International will give a keynote address regarding the current state of the Afghan humanitarian and displacement crisis. As 2021 marks the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that led to the global War on Terror, learn more about how the U.S. is examining its obligations to the region following the chaos of the Taliban takeover of the government. This session will address how governments, the United Nations, and various humanitarian organizations have worked—and should work—together to respond to the needs of Afghans displaced within and outside of Afghanistan. Participants will learn more about the challenges that face refugees resettling in the United States and how they can advocate to ensure the human rights of refugees and migrants around the world. Mr. Schwartz will also highlight the factors that brought about the humanitarian and evacuation crises as well as make predictions on what issues and trends the refugee and humanitarian communities will face in the coming years.

About the Speaker: Eric Schwartz became President of Refugees International in June 2017. Eric has had a three-decade career focused on humanitarian and human rights issues. Between 2009 and 2011, he served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration. As Assistant Secretary, he was credited with strengthening the State Department’s humanitarian advocacy around the world, initiating and implementing critical enhancements to the U.S. refugee resettlement program and raising the profile of global migration issues in U.S. foreign policy. He was the senior human rights and humanitarian official at the National Security Council during the Clinton administration, managing humanitarian responses to crises in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. He also served as the UN Deputy Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery after the 2004 Asian Tsunami; as Washington Director of Asia Watch (now the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch); and Staff Consultant to the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, among other positions in the U.S. government, at the UN and in the nonprofit sector. Just prior to arriving at Refugees International, Eric served a six-year term as Dean of the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. During much of that period, he also served on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and, ultimately, as the Commission’s vice chair. He holds a law degree from New York University School of Law, a Master of Public Affairs degree from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, and a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors from the State University of New York at Binghamton.