In collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), the Committee on Human Rights (CHR) has established a distance fellowship program for at-risk scholars unable to pursue their teaching and/or research. The program provides fellows with CMU Affiliate status, which includes the same online library access as faculty located at the university. Fellows are also connected with CMU scholars in their fields.

A pilot of the Distance Fellows Program was successfully carried out in 2019 with three Turkish scholars who were summarily dismissed from their universities in 2016 and 2017, prevented from traveling outside of the country, and faced criminal investigation/prosecution as a result of their peaceful exercise of internationally protected rights.

The fellows reported that their affiliate status with CMU, including remote access to the university’s library resources, helped make it possible for them to publish scholarly work in their fields during the distance program.