Jocelyn Benson

Jocelyn Benson

Jocelyn Benson is the Secretary of State of Michigan. She is the first Democrat to hold the office since Richard H. Austin left office in 1995. In October 2015 she became one of the youngest women in the state’s history to be inducted into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame.

About Jocelyn Benson in brief

Summary Jocelyn BensonJocelyn Benson is the Secretary of State of Michigan. She is also the former dean of Wayne State University Law School in Detroit, Michigan. In October 2015 she became one of the youngest women in the state’s history to be inducted into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame, second only to Serena Williams. On November 6, 2018, Benson was elected to be Michigan’s next Secretary of state, becoming the first Democrat to hold the office since Richard H. Austin left office in 1995. Benson graduated magna cum laude from Wellesley College, where she founded the now-annual Women in American Political Activism conference. She subsequently earned her master’s in sociology as a Marshall Scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford, in the United Kingdom, conducting research into the sociological implications of white supremacy and neo-Nazism. Benson served as the Voting Rights Policy Coordinator of the Harvard Civil Rights Project, a non-profit organization that sought to link academic research to civil rights advocacy efforts.

In 2012, Benson, a military spouse whose husband served in the U.S. Army as a sergeant with the 173rd Airborne Brigade, joined with three other military spouses and family members in Michigan to create Military Spouses of Michigan, a network dedicated to providing support and services to military family members and veterans. In January 2013, the group was selected to represent the state of Michigan in the Presidential Inaugural Parade; the only group of military spouses to receive that honor. In addition to serving on the board of directors of iCivics, a nonprofit created by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to improve education throughout the country, she is the founder and director of the Michigan Center for Election Law.