Human Rights and the Acoustical Society of America Edward J. Walsh Boys Town National Research Hospital Omaha, NE

The Acoustical Society of America (ASA)  7000 members  International in scope; 68% U.S.  AIP (American Institute of Physics) association  Standards Secretariat  Executive Council (EC) - officers + 6 elected members  Technical Council - VP, VP-elect, Chairs of Technical Committees  13 Technical Committees - arrange technical sessions at semiannual meetings

ASA Technical Committees  Acoustical Oceanography  Animal Bioacoustics  Architectural Acoustics  Biomedical Acoustics  Engineering Acoustics  Musical Acoustics  Noise  Physical Acoustics  Psychological and Physiological Acoustics  Signal Processing in Acoustics  Speech Communication  Structural Acoustics and Vibration  Underwater Acoustics

Human Rights and the ASA Panel on Public Policy (PoPP)  Panel on Public Policy (PoPP); prior experience in human rights’ realm  Society President delegated responsibility to PoPP to explore the Coalition question and return a recommendation to EC  Panel is small  Discussion was energetic  Enthusiastic advocacy for the initiative was critically important  Discussion was limited to a small segment of the Society; is that good?

Questions and Concerns  What does this have to do with acoustics?  Would ASA be expected to automatically adopt Coalition positions?  Would ASA be implicated by association regardless of disagreement re specific positions?  What precisely is the definition of human rights? Aren’t subjective/interpretational differences problematical?  Is such an association consistent with the ASA mission?  Avoid radical activism  Scientific societies should not associate with political movements

Human Rights Issues in Acoustics  Acoustic weapons  Acoustic eavesdropping  Science censorship  Acoustic harassment/torture  Classroom acoustics  Anthropogenic noise The right to acoustic …

Approval Process  Panel voted unanimously to recommend that the ASA join the Coalition  Aligning with Coalition at the affiliate level mollified skeptical members  Energetic discussion among members of the EC  EC unanimously authorized affiliation

The intervening year  Participated in SHRC meeting last summer  Successfully advocated for joint Special Session at the 159 th ASA meeting; (Science and Human Rights’ Coalition: The Interface Between the Human Rights’ and Scientific Communities)  Small but enthusiastic turnout  Great speakers

Was our approach the most appropriate?

Where to from here?  Plan to organize an SHRC event at each meeting; a non-trivial goal (planning for Cancun has come and gone – problem of semiannual meetings)  Regular contributions to newsletter; immediate plan is to report on the four SHRC working groups  Encourage submission of papers dealing with human rights issues at semiannual meetings; a really tough goal to achieve