College of Law Professor Arlene S. Kanter was awarded the International Educator of the Year Award by the International Center of Syracuse (ICS). Kanter was recognized for her excellence in teaching, international community outreach and commitment to people with disabilities all over the world.
College of Law Professor Arlene S. Kanter, center, who received the International Educator of the Year Award by the International Center of Syracuse, is joined by Amy McHugh, ICS Board of Directors vice president, left, and Elane Granger Carrasco, ICS Board of Directors president.
Kanter, the founder and director of the Disability Law and Policy Program and co-director of the Center on Human Policy, Law and Disability Studies, accepted the award Nov. 14 at the 2014 Central New York International Citizens Award Dinner at the Upstate University Institute for Human Performance. She was nominated for the award by Diane R. Wiener, director of Syracuse University’s Disability Cultural Center and research associate professor in the School of Education.
Kanter publishes and lectures extensively on U.S., comparative and international disability law. She is the author of more than 100 articles and book chapters, including the co-author of the first law casebook on international and comparative disability law and has published numerous articles and book chapters on disability law, and author of a new book, “The Development of Disability Rights Under International Law: From Charity to Human Rights” (Routledge, 2014).
An internationally recognized expert on disability rights, Kanter participated in the drafting of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. She also conducts research, teaches and works with universities, nongovernmental organizations and governments on disability issues in such countries as Argentina, Egypt, Ghana, India, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Mexico, Portugal, South Africa, Turkey and Vietnam.
“We deeply appreciate Professor Kanter’s contributions to our community. She forges a model for the kind of global connections and engagement that we want to sustain in Central New York,” says Elane Granger Carrasco, ICS Board of Directors president and associate director with the Slutzker Center for International Services.
“Professor Kanter’s championing of social justice, her leadership with the United Nations, her activism on behalf of and working alongside people with disabilities, her exceptional scholarship and her willingness to travel and to effectively communicate in multiple non-U.S., as well as U.S. cultural settings, make her contributions all the more meaningful for our future on the planet,” Carrasco says.
Kanter says she was honored to be recognized by ICS as International Educator of the Year.
“The experiences I have had at Syracuse University College of Law teaching our international students, who this year alone, are from Brazil, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Syria and Uzbekistan, as well as my experience teaching, lecturing and working in other countries have changed me—both as a teacher and as a person,” Kanter says.
“No book or article that I or my students read can ever match the type of learning that goes on when people from different countries come together to discuss the meaning of equality, dignity, human rights and disability discrimination,” Kanter says. “The richness and depth of such discussions, especially in my class this semester, have been one of the highlights of my 27-year teaching career at SU.”
Professor Kanter teaches courses on U.S., comparative and international disability law and policy; education and special education law; legislation and policy; ethics and professionalism. She is also the founder and co-editor of the Social Science Research Network’s “Journal on Disability Law,” and co-founder of the Disability Law Section of the American Association of Law Schools. She is a former commissioner of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Mental and Physical Disability Law.
