Gay Johnson McDougall (born August 13, 1947, in

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital city, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georgia, Fulton County, the mos ...

) is an

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lawyer who has spent her career addressing international human rights and racial discrimination. She is currently a Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at the Leitner Center on International Law and Justice of Fordham University Law School. She was Executive Director of Global Rights, Partners for Justice (from September 1994 to 2006). In August 2005, she was named the first

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Independent Expert on Minority Issues, serving until 2011.

Early years

Gay Johnson McDougall was born August 13, 1947 to Louis and Inez Gay Johnson. Her father was a hospital cook and her mother a high school math teacher. She grew up in the Dixie Hills neighborhood of Atlanta. She attended Atlanta public schools and in 1965 graduated from Booker T. Washington High School. As a child, Gay McDougall was banned from many public places in Atlanta. When she finished high school, she was chosen to be the first black student to integrate

Agnes Scott College Agnes Scott College is a private women's liberal arts college in Decatur, Georgia. The college enrolls approximately 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students. The college is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church and is considered one of the ...

Decatur, Georgia Decatur is a city in, and the county seat of, DeKalb County, Georgia, which is part of the Atlanta metropolitan area. With a population of 24,928 in the 2020 census, the municipality is sometimes assumed to be larger since multiple ZIP Codes ...

. Looking back on the experiences of her early years, she has said: "We believed then that our situation was uniquely tragic ... We often looked to the international community with the hope that somehow the world beyond this country operated on different rules…We were both right and wrong."Ken Reitz
"National Human Rights Depend on International Action, Says U.N. Expert"
University of Virginia School of Law, March 4, 2008. Retrieved January 16, 2019.

Education and private law career

After two years at Agnes Scott, she transferred to

Bennington College Bennington College is a private liberal arts college in Bennington, Vermont. Founded in 1932 as a women's college, it became co-educational in 1969. It claims to be the first college to include visual and performing arts as an equal partner in ...

in Bennington, Vermont. She earned her BA in social science from Bennington, her JD at

Yale Law School Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by '' U.S. News & World ...

, and her LLM in public international law at the London School of Economics and Politics. After graduating from Yale Law School, she joined the

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corporate law firm of Debevoise, Plimpton, Lyons & Gates.

Non-profit career

McDougall is currently a Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at the Leitner Center on International Law and Justice, Fordham University Law School In 1998, she was first elected to serve as an independent expert on the United Nations treaty body that oversees the

International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) is a United Nations convention. A third -generation human rights instrument, the Convention commits its members to the elimination of racial discri ...

(CERD). She was the first American to be elected to the body of 18 international experts who oversee compliance by governments worldwide with the obligations established under the treaty. She served a four-year term, from 1998 to 2001. She was elected to another four-year term on the CERD Committee in June 2015, and served on the Committee for a term that began on January 20, 2016, and ended on January 19, 2020. She was a Vice-chairperson of the Committee. At its 1996 session, the

United Nations Commission on Human Rights The United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) was a functional commission within the overall framework of the United Nations from 1946 until it was replaced by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2006. It was a subsidiary body of ...

elected her to serve a four-year term as a member (alternate) of the U.N. Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities of the Human Rights commission. She also served as Special Rapporteur on the issue of systematic rape, sexual slavery, and slavery-like practices in armed conflict, in which capacity she presented a study to the United Nations Sub-Commission on Human Rights that called for international legal standards for prosecuting acts of systematic rape and sexual slavery committed during armed conflict. As Special Rapporteur she also toured

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierr ...

with the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights to assess the devastating impact the civil war had on civilian populations. Prior to joining Global Rights, McDougall served as one of five international members of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...

's 16-member Independent Electoral Commission which successfully organized and administered that country's first non-racial elections. During southern Africa's

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

era, she was director of the Southern African Project of the

Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, or simply the Lawyers' Committee, is a civil rights organization founded in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy. At the time, Alabama Governor George Wallace had vowed to resist cou ...

from 1980 until early 1994 and gave direct assistance to the defense of thousands of political prisoners in South Africa and

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

by financing the defense and collaborating with attorneys. In 1989, McDougall founded the Commission on Independence for Namibia, a bipartisan group of 31 distinguished Americans who monitored in detail the year-long process to independence mandated by the U.N. The Commission intervened to force modifications in critical legislation, such as the voter registration and election laws, which as drafted, threatened the fairness of the election process.

Honors

McDougall was awarded a

MacArthur Foundation The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is a private foundation that makes grants and impact investments to support non-profit organizations in approximately 50 countries around the world. It has an endowment of $7.0 billion and p ...

Fellowship in 1999 for her "innovative and highly effective" work on behalf of international human rights. She has Honorary Doctor of Law degrees from

Georgetown University Law Center The Georgetown University Law Center (Georgetown Law) is the law school of Georgetown University, a private research university in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1870 and is the largest law school in the United States by enrollment and ...

, the

University of Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( or ). The university ...

(South Africa), the School of Law of the

City University of New York The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the public university system of New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven senior colleges, seven community colleges and seven pro ...

, the

School of Advanced Study The School of Advanced Study (SAS), a postgraduate institution of the University of London, is the UK's national centre for the promotion and facilitation of research in the humanities and social sciences. It was established in 1994 and is ba ...

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degr ...

, and

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original cam ...

. McDougall received a

Candace Award The Candace Award is an award that was given from 1982 to 1992 by the National Coalition of 100 Black Women (NCBW) to "Black role models of uncommon distinction who have set a standard of excellence for young people of all races". Candace (pronou ...

from the

National Coalition of 100 Black Women The National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc. (NCBW) is a non-profit volunteer organization for African American women. Its members address common issues in their communities, families and personal lives, promoting gender and racial equity. Hi ...

in 1990.

Other positions

* Senior Scholars 2002,

Institute for Policy Studies The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) is an American progressive think tank started in 1963 that is based in Washington, D.C. It was directed by John Cavanagh from 1998 to 2021. In 2021 Tope Folarin was announced as new Executive Director. ...

* Board Member, Africare * Board Member, CARE (Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere) * Board Member,

Global Fund for Women The Global Fund for Women is a non-profit foundation funding women's human rights initiatives. It was founded in 1987 by New Zealander Anne Firth Murray, and co-founded by Frances Kissling and Laura Lederer to fund women's initiatives around the ...

* Advisory Council, Realizing Rights * Executive Council,

American Society of International Law The American Society of International Law (ASIL), founded in 1906, was chartered by the United States Congress in 1950 to foster the study of international law, and to promote the establishment and maintenance of international relations on the ba ...

* Distinguished Scholar in Residence,

American University The American University (AU or American) is a private federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Its main campus spans 90 acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, mostly in the Spring Valley neighborhood of Northwest D.C. AU was cha ...

's College of Law Faculty * Visiting Scholar, American University Washington College of Law

Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law The Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law is one of many specialized departments found within the American University Washington College of Law located in Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption ...

* Mulligan Distinguished Visiting Professor of International Law, and Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence, Leitner Center for International Law and Justice,

Fordham University School of Law Fordham University School of Law is the law school of Fordham University. The school is located in Manhattan in New York City, and is one of eight ABA-approved law schools in that city. In 2013, 91% of the law school's first-time test take ...

*Board member of the

Open Society Justice Initiative Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is a grantmaking network founded and chaired by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the world, with a sta ...

of the

Open Society Foundations Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is a grantmaking network founded and chaired by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the world, with a st ...

References

External links

Interview with Gay McDougall on the African Activist Archive Project website

Global Rights website

American University, Washington D.C. website/McDougall bio

Leitner Center for International Law and Justice
{{DEFAULTSORT:McDougall, Gay African-American lawyers African-American academics African-American activists African-American educators American educators New York (state) lawyers Living people Minority rights People from Atlanta United Nations special rapporteurs Members of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination Yale Law School alumni 1947 births African-American women lawyers American women lawyers Bennington College alumni MacArthur Fellows American officials of the United Nations