Professor Caroline Bettinger-López recently gave two talks at the University of Cologne in Germany and spoke at the conference on Ending Sexual Harassment and Gender-Based Violence at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
At the University of Cologne, Bettinger-López spoke on “Law Clinics, Universities, and Liberal Thought: Finding Clarity in a Time of Chaos and Cacophony,” which explored how law clinics, universities, and the broader community can serve as defenders of justice and sustain the clinics work and purpose during this critical time. Her second talk on “Domestic Violence as a Human Rights Violation: A View from the United States and Beyond” examined domestic violence as an international human rights violation by exploring how the U.S. has responded to gender-based violence through legislation, a National Action Plan, and community-based initiatives.
At the University of Michigan’s conference, Bettinger-López discussed the U.S. National Plan to End Gender-Based Violence. The plan, announced in May 2023, is a comprehensive strategy aimed at addressing and ultimately ending gender-based violence in the U.S.
Bettinger-López is the founder/director of the Human Rights Clinic and faculty chair of the Human Rights Program. Her scholarship, practice, and teaching concern international human rights law and policy advocacy, violence against women, gender and race discrimination, immigrants’ rights, clinical legal education, and the implementation of human rights norms at the domestic level, principally in the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Professor Bettinger-López regularly litigates and engages in other forms of advocacy before the Inter-American Human Rights system, the United Nations, federal and state courts, and legislative and executive bodies. She also serves as a Commissioner on the Lancet Commission on Gender-Based Violence and Maltreatment of Young People.
Bettinger-López has served in the federal government during two presidential administrations. From 2021-2024, she served in the Biden-Harris Administration, as a senior advisor to the White House Gender Policy Council (fall 2021), and as a senior advisor on gender and equality at the U.S. Department of Justice, Office for Victims of Crime (2022-2024), where she helped to lead the development of the first-ever U.S. National Plan to End Gender-Based Violence. From 2015-2017, she served in the Obama-Biden Administration as the White House advisor on violence against women, senior advisor to Vice President Joe Biden, and a member of the White House Council on Women and Girls.
