While the late Professor David Weissbrodt, who founded Minnesota Law’s Human Rights Center (HRC) in 1988, negotiated treaties in Geneva, New York, and London, Margaret Rounds kept pace with him from her home in the Twin Cities. A close collaborator with Weissbrodt, she co-founded the local Amnesty International chapter, led letter-writing campaigns, and became the first volunteer at the Center for Victims of Torture. Weissbrodt was the global leader. Rounds was the daily worker. Together, they changed Minnesota’s human rights landscape.
“Not all of us can achieve what David Weissbrodt achieved,” says Charlie Rounds. “But he remained that humble person who relied on so many people to do his work with him. My mother was a leader on the ground.”
Now, Charlie and his husband, Mark Hiemenz, are ensuring that both legacies endure. The couple recently signed an estate gift establishing the Margaret Rounds Fund, an endowed fund that will support the HRC’s work in perpetuity. They’ve also given annually to the HRC for roughly two decades, funding summer fellowships that provide stipends for law students placed at human rights organizations in positions that would otherwise be unpaid and accessible only to students with independent means.
Their connection to the HRC began about 20 years ago when Weissbrodt personally asked them for help funding those fellowships. It deepened under Amanda Lyons ’09, the HRC’s current executive director, who drew them into the HRC’s work in ways that went far beyond writing a check. Charlie has traveled to the United Nations in Geneva twice with the HRC, delivered guest lectures in business and human rights courses, and mentored students, some of whom, Lyons says, don’t have many other professionals in their corner.
“Charlie and Mark are very special,” she says. “As seasoned advocates and leaders themselves, the number of ways they have contributed to the Human Rights Center community and mission — it’s hard to compare them with anybody else.”
Neither Charlie nor Mark attended Minnesota Law, but that’s part of what makes their support so meaningful. Lyons says they’ve challenged the HRC to collaborate with other schools across campus and think beyond the boundaries of legal scholarship. The fund named for Margaret, Charlie’s mother, who died in 2015, does something similar by honoring a woman who practiced human rights not in courtrooms or at the United Nations but in her own community.
“Margaret was known for being this incredible human who stood up for human rights and built community wherever she went, always focused on taking care of people,” Lyons says. “This investment challenges and inspires the Center to do the same in our human rights research, teaching, and advocacy.”
For Charlie, the timing of the estate gift is deliberate. He believes the current moment is critical for the HRC’s mission, and he wants to support its small but dedicated team. He’s also thinking generationally, inspired by his time getting to know and work with so many students committed to advancing human rights.
“It’s important for me to know that my mother’s work, David’s work, will go on,” Charlie says. “That intergenerational component is vitally important to my relationship with the Human Rights Center.”