Nicholas Kristof: Two women who are heroes for our age

They should win a joint Nobel Peace Prize View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Thursday, March 14, 2019 [NYTimes.com/Kristof »]( [Nasrin Sotoudeh, who has defended human rights in Iran, in 2014. Her family reports that this week she was sentenced to 33 more years in prison.]( Nasrin Sotoudeh, who has defended human rights in Iran, in 2014. Her family reports that this week she was sentenced to 33 more years in prison. Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images In journalism we mostly focus on rogues and villains, but [today I write about]( two heroes who have risked everything to confront dictators and seek greater rights for women in their countries. The countries are Iran and Saudi Arabia, enemies of each other who find common ground in only one area: their determination to crush women’s rights and those who advocate for them. Nasrin Sotoudeh, an Iranian human rights lawyer, has just been sentenced to an additional 33 years in prison and 148 lashes, on top of a five-year sentence she is now serving. This is “beyond barbaric,” as the State Department correctly noted. But it refuses to condemn equally the barbaric torture of Loujain al-Hathloul, a Saudi women’s rights activist who went on trial Wednesday after months of imprisonment, waterboarding, floggings and electric shock torture. That’s because Saudi Arabia is our ally, but as [my column argues]( If you care about human rights only among your enemies, you don’t really care about human rights. Previously I’ve urged that Loujain be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I’ve tweaked that to suggest that it go jointly to Loujain and Nasrin, two great advocates for women’s rights in regimes that agree on nothing but misogyny. I would love to see them take the stage in Oslo and exchange hugs, and that would send a powerful message to governments like theirs that see a future in imprisoning and torturing women’s leaders. I’m hoping that Saudi Crown Prince MBS and Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei will both get indigestion from this column, but I hope you’ll [find it inspiring!]( On Wednesday evening, the Senate voted to end American involvement in the war in Yemen. As you might know, [I visited Yemen]( in December and find our complicity in the suffering there to be unconscionable.  I was delighted to see state charges filed in the Paul Manafort case, to underscore that a presidential pardon won’t get him off the hook (the president can pardon only federal crimes, not state ones). But one thing struck me: a defense lawyer said Wednesday that the case would never have arisen if Manafort had not been Trump’s campaign chairman. The other way of looking at it is that lots of wealthy people break the law all the time but are never prosecuted, until they happen to work for a new president and face greater scrutiny. I think that’s the risk that the president’s children and company face. The scandal over parents buying their way into elite colleges was illegal only because the parents didn’t pursue the more conventional approach of a large donation to the college, winning extra consideration for the child. I think America’s universities are some of its most important public goods, and it seems wrong to me that they give special access to privileged kids whose parents donated or have legacy advantages. Those privileged kids already have gone to elite schools, hired SAT coaches, had their college essays read a thousand times — and then they get extra consideration when they apply because of who their parents are? [I wrote about this last fall]( and cited one Princeton study that legacy offers a boost equivalent to 160 SAT points on a 1,600 point scale. So a kid with 1400 SAT points gets the equivalent of a 1560. My colleague [Frank Bruni]( also weighed in. One of the most encouraging statements from President Trump was his pledge in his State of the Union address to nearly eliminate AIDS in the U.S. and beyond. This is indeed doable, and it would build on the best thing that President George W. Bush did — his Pepfar program that has saved millions of lives. Unfortunately Trump’s new budget proposal would cut funds for AIDS programs (including the Global Fund) and make elimination [less achievable](. Here’s [my column]( about these two great heroes, one from Iran and one from Saudi Arabia, who are standing up for women’s rights and suffering greatly as a consequence. They have devoted their voices to others, and now they need our voices. [Please read.]( How to Help My column Sunday was about family separations at the border, focusing on a Guatemalan immigrant who was separated from his teenage daughter for six months. They were able to reunite partly with the help of a group called [Miles4Migrants]( which donates extra airline miles to help migrants. So if you have extra airline miles that you don’t need, check it out. Oops Ellen from Saratoga, Cal., pointed out an error in my last newsletter. I wrote about [a case]( in which a man was sentenced unfairly and said his name was William Killian. In fact, the man’s name was Edward Young, and it was the judge who was William Killian. Mea culpa. ADVERTISEMENT You can connect with me on [Facebook](. If you have friends who might enjoy this newsletter, forward this email or tell them they can [sign up here](. Send feedback or tech questions to kristof-newsletter@nytimes.com. Recent Columns [‘An Angel From God,’ and Border Agents Took Her]( Trump’s cruel separation of immigrant families continued after he declared he was ending the practice. [We Will Survive. Probably.]( American democracy is too resilient for Trump to destroy. What I’m Reading in The Times [Measles Is Making a Comeback. Here’s How to Stop It.]( By THE EDITORIAL BOARD, TAIGE JENSEN, JENN LYON AND JOEY ABISSO Lawmakers and social media platforms each have a role to play in fighting back. [A Landscape Lewis and Clark Would Recognize Is Now Under Threat]( By MIKE GARRITY AND CAROLE KING Logging, mining and development loom over the Northern Rockies. ADVERTISEMENT NEED HELP? Review our newsletter [help page]( or contact us [for assistance](. 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