Educating and inspiring the next generation of human rights guardians

As an immigrant who first came to the United States on a scholarship and a former professor, Tom Lantos had a profound belief in the power of education. He was, at his core, an educator and mentor who was deeply committed to inspiring the rising generation to take seriously their responsibility to be “their brother’s keeper.” We honor his commitment to educating the next generation through the following programs:

•  The Lantos Congressional Fellows Program first began as a partnership with the Lantos Congressional office in 2001 and has evolved into a program run exclusively by the Lantos Foundation. It offers a unique opportunity for exceptional young people across Europe and Israel to work in the United States Congress, gaining a better understanding of the U.S. political system and the role of human rights in the legislative process. Fellows are carefully selected from an elite pool of post-college and post-graduate level students for fellowships hosted by congressional offices. The Lantos Fellows participate in weekly meetings with leading human rights activists and professionals who share their insight and their professional journeys to both inform and inspire. Over its 20-year history, more than 100 fellows have participated in the Lantos Fellows Program from countries including Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Scotland, Sweden, Turkey and the United Kingdom. Nearly 50 congressional offices have hosted Lantos Fellows, including offices in both the House and Senate, personal offices and committee offices. The program is fully bipartisan, with both Republican and Democratic offices hosting. While applicants from all countries and backgrounds are welcomed, we prioritize the inclusion of a Hungarian fellow (in honor of Tom’s native country), an Israeli fellow (in honor of Tom’s commitment to strong relations with Israel), a Roma fellow (in recognition of the limited opportunities afforded this long discriminated against community) and a Jane Haining fellow from Scotland (in honor of Mrs. Annette Lantos’ former school teacher, a Scottish missionary in Budapest who Yad Vashem has recognized as “Righteous Among the Nations” for giving her life to try and protect her Hungarian Jewish students during the Second World War).
  

•  In 2017, we launched a three-part Rule of Law Lecture in partnership with the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). These lectures provided a safe, global platform for a prominent political dissident or rule of law expert to offer their honest, unfiltered perspective on rule of law issues in their home country or to provide analysis on important rule of law issues around the world. The lectures included discussion of the challenges facing citizens in countries where the government flouts the rule of law and focused on what can be done to effect change in those countries. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a Russian prisoner of conscience turned democracy activist, delivered the first Rule of Law Lecture in 2017. Subsequent lectures were delivered by then-President of the International Criminal Court Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji and Ambassador Harold Koh, former Dean of Yale Law School.
  

•  Artists represent one of the most powerful but often overlooked groups in the human rights communities. In an effort to elevate art as a means of educating about and advocating for human rights, the Lantos Foundation launched the Activist Artist Scholarship program in 2020. This annual competition challenges high school seniors to examine the influence of a particular “activist artist” in essay form and show how that artist used his/her medium to influence, inform and inspire action on a human rights issue. Alternatively, applicants are encouraged to create their own piece of activist art. The Foundation currently awards a total of $15,000 in scholarships on an annual basis.