Press Release
Published on March 8, 2010
Washington, DC Human Rights First today announced that Washington policy insider C. Dixon Osburn and award-winning journalist Daphne Eviatar have joined the organization’s Law and Security Program. Osburn is the Law and Security Program’s new director and Eviatar has been tapped as its new senior associate.
“Human Rights First is proud to welcome Dixon and Daphne to our Law and Security team,” said Human Rights First President and CEO Elisa Massimino. “Their experience on the front lines of advocacy will strengthen our organization’s efforts to ensure that national security policy conforms with our nation’s laws and commitment to upholding human rights.”
Osburn, who has an extensive background in legal and policy advocacy, will be based in Human Rights First’s Washington, DC office. Prior to joining Human Rights First, he spent 14 years as Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, one of the nation’s largest LGBT civil rights advocacy organizations. In that role, he is credited with significantly changing public opinion and reframing the debate over the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Osburn has had great success working in coalition with high-level military leaders. He has published op-eds in the New York Times and USA Today and has appeared extensively on national television and quoted in the press. Osburn earned his JD/MBA from Georgetown University and an AB with distinction from Stanford University. He is a member of the bars of Pennsylvania and District of Columbia.
As Senior Associate in Human Rights First’s Law and Security Program, Eviatar is a lawyer and award-winning journalist who has written widely about law, human rights and economic development. She will be based in the organization’s New York City office, where she will investigate and report on U.S. national security policies and practices and their human rights implications. A former legal correspondent for the Washington Independent, her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek International, Harper’s and many others. Eviatar has been interviewed on radio and television, including on the Rachel Maddow Show and Morning Meeting with Dylan Ratigan (MSNBC), Al Jazeera, and WNYC and KCRW Public Radio. She was a 2005 Alicia Patterson Foundation fellow, a 2003 Pew International Journalism fellow at Johns Hopkins University’s School for Advanced International Studies, and has taught law and journalism at New York Law School. Daphne is a graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, New York University School of Law and Dartmouth College. She was a law clerk to Judge Irma E. Gonzalez on the United States District Court in San Diego, and to Judge Dolores K. Sloviter on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia.
