EDUCATION:
B.A., Wellesley College
M.Phil., Oxford University
J.D., Harvard Law School

COURSES TAUGHT:
Election Law
Sports and Inequality
Race and the Law
Education Law
Civil Procedure

PROFILE:
Professor Jocelyn Benson is currently an Assistant Professor of Law at Wayne State University Law School.  She also serves as the founder and director of the Richard Austin Center on Election Law and Administration, and is a member of the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Election Law.  She is also in the process of writing a book entitled Democracy and the Secretary: the Crucial Role of State Secretaries of State in Promoting Democracy.  The book will highlight the crucial role that a state’s chief election administrator plays in the electoral process and illustrate how Secretaries from either side of the political spectrum are making significant contributions to promoting democracy. 

Professor Benson joined the faculty at Wayne State in 2005, after serving as a law clerk to Judge Damon J. Keith on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. She previously worked for the Democratic National Committee as the National Field Director for Election Protection during the 2004 presidential election.   

Professor Benson graduated magna cum laude from Wellesley College, where she founded the now-annual Women in American Political Activism conference and was the first student to be elected to serve in the governing body for the town of Wellesley, the Town Meeting. She subsequently earned her Masters in Sociology as a Marshall Scholar at Oxford University in the United Kingdom, conducting research into the sociological implications of white supremacy and neo-Nazism. She received her J.D from Harvard University Law School, where she was a general editor of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. During her time at Harvard Law, Professor Benson also worked as the Voting Rights Policy Coordinator for the Harvard Civil Rights Project, a non-profit organization that seeks to link academic research to civil rights advocacy efforts.

Professor Benson has also worked as a summer associate for voting rights and election law for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, as a legal assistant to Nina Totenberg at National Public Radio, and as an investigative journalist for the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, AL.   

Her published work includes:

“Voter Fraud or Voter Defrauded? Highlighting Courts’ Inconsistent Approach to Election Fraud,” HARVARD              CIVIL RIGHTS-CIVIL LIBERTIES LAW REVIEW (forthcoming 2009).

“One Person, One Vote: Protecting the Franchise Through the Effective Administration of Election Procedures,” 40 THE URBAN LAWYER 305 (2008) (invited submission).

“Towards Full Participation: Solutions for Improvements to the Federal Language Assistance Laws,” ADVANCE, The Official Law Journal of the American Constitution Soc’y (May 2008).

“Democracy and the Secretary: The Crucial Role of State Election Administrators in Promoting Accuracy and Access to Democracy,” SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY PUBLIC LAW REVIEW (2008) (invited submission).

 “Election Fraud and the Initiative Process: A Study of the 2006 Michigan Civil Rights Initiative,” 34 FORDHAM URBAN LAW JOURNAL 887 (2007) (invited submission).

“¡Su Voto Es Su Voz! Incorporating Limited English Proficient Voters into American Democracy,”48 BOSTON COLLEGE LAW REVIEW 251 (2007).

“Language Protections for All?Extending and Expanding the Language Protections of the Voting Rights Act” in  Democracy, Participation and Power:  Perspectives on Reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act,Berkeley Public Policy Press (2006).

 “Preparing for 2007: Legal and Legislative Issues Surrounding the Reauthorization of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act,” 67 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH LAW REVIEW 125 (2005).

“Note: Turning Lemons into Lemonade: Making Georgia v. Ashcroft the Mobile v. Bolden of 2007,” 39 HARVARD CIVIL RIGHTS-CIVIL LIBERTIES LAW REVIEW 485 (2004).

Democracy Spoiled (with Professor Christopher Edley, Jr., et al), Harvard Civil Rights Project (2002)

Sanchez Defeats Dornan in California’s 46th District Race (with Dr. Christina Fastnow), in The Road to Congress 1998 86-102 (Sunil Ahuja and Robert Dewhirst, eds., 1999).