Zofia Joynt, an MA student and research intern at the Victims of Communism Memorial
Foundation, will be one of our May 2025 graduates! She attended the Summit on
International Religious Freedom, along with other students from the human rights
program:
“As students of the M.A. in Human Rights program, my classmates and I had the opportunity
to attend the University Partnership Program at the International Religious Freedom Summit.
David Trimble, president of the Religious Freedom Institute, emphasized that we all, as
humans, have the intrinsic and inalienable right (and duty!) to seek truth in a transcendental
reality and sow order accordingly in our lives. Jim Bennet, Director of RFI’s National Center
for Religious Freedom Education, walked us through the dimensions of religious freedom
which he summed up as: EXPLORE life’s ultimate questions, EMBRACE what one’s conscience
suggests is true and EXPRESS this in public and private life.
We worked through current, real-world situations (secularism in Europe, the Ugyhur
genocide in China, religious freedom violations in Iran) in breakout groups with various
speakers and educators, including Professor William Saunders, Director of the M.A. in Human
Rights program. Father Ambrose, a student of the program, was invited to speak about the
struggles happening in his home country of Nigeria. Sam Brownback and Katrina Lantos-
Swett, co-chairs of the IRF Summit and champions of religious freedom work, shared some of
their personal stories and encouraged us as rising professionals to pursue religious freedom in
whatever capacity we are in and to continue the good work of those who come before us.”
