David Weissbrodt, longtime U professor who founded its Human Rights Center, dies

David Weissbrodt didn’t like watching violent films.

“We had this adage – they’re too much like work,” said Pat Schaffer, his 50-year-old wife.

As a widely published human rights scientist who has worked professionally for victims of murder and torture, Weißbrodt was all too familiar with violence in the real world. His main interest is “to do something about it,” she said.

“He would do missions for Amnesty International and meet with people in countries where it was dangerous,” said Schaffer. “He was always aware that this was risky but important.”

Weissbrodt of Minneapolis, a retired Regents Professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, died of Parkinson’s on November 11th. He was 77.

Born in Washington, DC, Weissbrodt attended Columbia University and the London School of Economics. He earned a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and joined the United States Law School in 1975.

In 1988 he founded the U’s Human Rights Center, one of the first of its kind, and later founded the world’s largest human rights library. He was the first US citizen since Eleanor Roosevelt to head a United Nations human rights body.

Weissbrodt worked with the lawyers for human rights and Amnesty International and helped set up the center for victims of torture based in St. Paul. He started the International Human Rights Internship Program to give students the opportunity to work in human rights organizations around the Minnesota Protocol to investigate the potentially wrongful death.

In his 43-year career in law school, Weißbrodt published several books on human rights, immigration and international law. He is the co-author of International Human Rights: Law, Policy, and Process, a 1,200-page case book, and has been visiting professor at universities in France, Switzerland, England, Japan and Australia.

Weissbrodt wrote a handbook for the United Nations to train people to work with victims of human rights abuses, Schaffer said, so they can “understand the trauma” [victims] and the possible dangers that the rest of her family, if not her, could face. “

He has been known as a mentor and inspiration to hundreds of students over the years. They often stopped by his office and sometimes cried from the stress of law school, Schaffer said.

“He was human at heart,” she said. “He was warm … [and] would help them with their personal problems. This core warmth was what drove him, in my opinion, and why people loved him personally. He listened, he took care. “

Sometimes at social gatherings, when Weißbrodt talked about his work: “They said: ‘Oh, it’s really worth it, I would like to help!’ and I would say, ‘Are you sure?’ “said Schaffer. “Because they would get a call from him in three days and he had a project for them.”

Weissbrodt is a realist, said Schaffer, knowing full well that, despite all his work, the world will never be enlightened enough to completely end human rights violations, “and we all have peace and justice”.

“But he said if he could move the ball three feet along the line to the goal post it would be a life’s work that would have satisfied him,” she said.

Besides Schaffer, Weißbrodt is survived by his son James from Minneapolis; Daughter Bronwen of Andover; Sister Amy Monahan of Portland, Oregon .; and three grandchildren. Services were held.

https://www.startribune.com/david-weissbrodt-longtime-university-of-minnesota-professor-who-founded-its-human-rights-center-dies/600119038/