At Wellesley, Jocelyn Benson ’99 says, she learned the importance of women having each other’s backs. It’s the kind of support she has given and received in the past several years as Michigan’s secretary of state.
Benson catapulted into the national spotlight after the 2020 election, when she fiercely defended Michigan’s election process as the state’s presidential election results were among those called into question after Joe Biden’s win over Donald Trump. She became known as one of the “women of Michigan” along with the state’s governor and attorney general. They and other female colleagues were called “witches,” “shrill,” and a host of other insults, which only galvanized them further. They formed a powerful cohort that Benson says made protecting democracy a cornerstone of their service to the state and country.
One of the best aspects of Benson’s current role as secretary of state, she says, “similar to the Wellesley experience, is being able to lock arms [with female colleagues] and march forward together.” She sees a real importance in that kind of solidarity, “that consistent belief in each other and the support we can provide.”
In 2023, President Joe Biden awarded Benson a Presidential Citizens Medal, the nation’s second-highest civilian award, for defending democracy, and that same year she received the Brennan Center for Justice’s Legacy Award for “serving as a model for the nation by safeguarding every vote and every voice in her fierce protection of fair elections.” The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library Foundation also honored her with its 2022 Profile in Courage Award. Now receiving Wellesley’s Alumnae Achievement Award, she says, is an “incredible honor and recognition—a beautiful thing, an affirming thing, and a reminder of the support and solidarity of the College community.”
Benson has long been passionate about upholding voting rights. Early in her career, she moved to Alabama and worked with the Southern Poverty Law Center to investigate white supremacist and other hate groups. That experience, she says, taught her to be “fearless and courageous,” and drove home how vital voting rights are to democracy. “It was there where I really became instilled with a deep sense of responsibility to continue on the work of those who’ve come before us, to build a better world and stand up for what’s right and for our rights and freedoms,” she says.
She also learned about the life of Viola Gregg Liuzzo, a Detroit native who was shot and killed by a Klansman in 1965 while she was driving marchers between Selma and Montgomery. Liuzzo, Benson says, inspired her as someone who “put her life on the line in order to seek a better world.”
“Those types of service-driven people, citizens, Americans, leaders, are what can truly help us move forward in times like this,” Benson says. Her time in Alabama, she says, gave her the opportunity to consider her future and how she could best “continue on the work of those women and others who’ve come before us and have sacrificed greatly to serve, protect, and advance the ideals that are important for all of us.”
Benson went on to get a master’s in sociology as a Marshall Scholar at the University of Oxford, then received her J.D. from Harvard Law School. In 2005, she joined the faculty of Wayne State University Law School, and just seven years later, she became dean at age 36—the youngest woman ever to lead a top-100 accredited American law school. As dean, she worked to improve affordability, raise the school’s profile, and expand her students’ employment opportunities.
One consistent theme of Benson’s career: She marches forward and reaches back, despite all the noise around her. Wellesley alumnae all know the phrase “well-behaved women rarely make history”; Benson lives by the saying, which she says to her means to “not cede your power, what you’re capable of, to anyone or anything—not to preconceived notions of what’s possible, not to expectations that others may have on what you should do with your life or your career.”
“The essence of the Wellesley education,” she says, “is inspiring women to try their own course, to see things that aren’t there, and to try to build a path if you don’t find one for yourself.” Once that path is created, she says, it’s equally important to “reach back and take others with you, to make sure that even if you’re the first of something, you’re not the last.”
Benson has launched a campaign for governor of Michigan during a moment she calls an “important precipice for our democracy, for our country, certainly for our state here in Michigan.”
She says the state and country need more leaders who will lead with integrity, clarity, and leadership that better align with the country’s values. To her, that means addressing the housing affordability crisis, improving access to education, and preserving access to and affordability of health care. “But beyond that,” she says, “it means leaders who are willing to have the moral courage that it takes, at times like this, to stand up to bullies and speak truth to power.”
Wellesley’s motto, Non Ministrari sed Ministrare, is a North Star, she says. “Now more than ever,” Benson says, “we need more leaders on all sides of the political spectrum who see themselves as … public servants first, and lead with that ethos in mind.”
Wellesley College is a nonpartisan institution and does not endorse or support any political candidates.
