Jean Benson Wilkinson

November 24, 1914 to December 28, 2010

Submitted by Margy Wilkinson

Jean Benson Wilkinson, a longtime defender of civil
liberties and beloved teacher, passed away at the age
of 96 in Berkeley, California, on December 28
surrounded by her loving family. Jean was a California
native with deep Bay Area roots whose life embodied
almost a century of the state's history. She was a
pioneering teacher who believed in allowing high school
students to grapple with controversial issues and a
civil liberties advocate who, with her husband, stood
up for their belief in the constitutional protection of
free speech in the face of the McCarthy-era HUAC and
the State Committee on Un-American Activities - and
paid a high cost. Jean was an active member of the
teachers union, an advocate for academic freedom,
women's history and multi-cultural education.

Born in Monterey, California, she spent her early
childhood in and around the East Bay. Jean's father
Marvin Benson was one time Superintendent of the
Hayward School District, and her mother Lydia Miner
Benson, was a schoolteacher. Her sister Doris was born
in 1917, also in Monterey. Jean's family moved to Los
Angeles and she graduated from Fairfax High School in
1932. Jean then attended UCLA to study English and
History, where she became student body president in
1936, and graduated with a B.A in History. Jean
returned briefly to the Bay Area to obtain her teaching
credential and her first teaching job was in Winters,
California. From there, Jean returned to Los Angeles
where she married her college boyfriend, Frank
Wilkinson, in 1939. Frank went on to become the
Director of the Los Angeles Federal Housing Authority,
while Jean taught high school in rural Canoga Park.
While there, Jean began to understand the importance of
academic freedom. Many of her students were children of
farmers, and the landowners of the surrounding farms
made up a powerful conservative farming elite which
tried to influence what was being taught.

In 1940, Jean wrote a paper entitled Controversial
Issues in the Schools. Jean asserted that it is the
right of the student to hear both sides of a
controversial issue in order to learn to distinguish
between fact and opinion. And that it is also the right
and responsibility of the teacher to express her own
opinion. Jean believed the classroom should be a place
for debate and discussion. Jean wrote,

"The child is the first to realize when the issues
which are so important to him are being avoided and
neglected...As school becomes less helpful and
meaningful to him, the farther away he draws from any
influence it tries to wield over him. Education as an
important force in a democratic society loses its
purpose. If education continues to follow its mistaken
policy of 'impartiality' which in reality is consent to
the status of the moment, then it fails in at least one
function which is vital to the continuance of
democratic society."

In 1952 during the McCarthy Era, Jean and Frank
Wilkinson were both called before the State Committee
on Un-American Activities and refused to answer
questions based on the protections of the First and
Fifth Amendments to the US Constitution. As a result,
Frank was fired from the Housing Authority. Jean became
one of the first public school teachers to be fired by
the Los Angeles Board of Education for refusing to
cooperate with the Committee. Jean took her case to the
State Superior Court and lost, with one judge saying
Jean had "sowed the dragon seeds of treason in the
classroom."

Jean went to work as a private tutor and taught in
private schools, while Frank became an organizer in the
struggle to abolish the House Un-American Committee
(HUAC). Their three children, Jeffry (born 1942), Tony
(born 1945) and Jo (born 1947), quickly learned that
their family was different from the neighbors. The
Wilkinson family was under constant FBI surveillance,
the phones were tapped, and there were death threats
against Frank. In 1960 the house was fire bombed
forcing the family to move. On May 1, 1961, Frank went
to prison for taking the First Amendment when called to
testify before HUAC in Atlanta, Georgia. Jean was left
to raise the kids, pay the bills, as well as hold
speaking engagements about Frank's case. Jean traveled
to Washington, D.C., to appeal to President Kennedy
with a petition for clemency which was denied.

In 1965, Frank and Jean divorced, and Jean moved back
to Berkeley where she was rehired in the public school
system after years of being black-listed. She was the
one of the first history teachers to teach Women's
Studies in a secondary school in Berkeley. She went
back to school for her Masters Degree in Eduction at UC
Berkeley in 1970, and retired from teaching in 1977. In
1980, Jean was a unit developer under a grant from the
U.S. Education Department for "In Search of Our Past:
Units in Women's History." Once retired, Jean began
working on an anthology of women writers, collecting
stories about girls coming of age from around the
world. She, Lyn Reese and Phillis Koppelman, fellow
educators, published I'm On My Way Running in 1983. In
1987 under a second U.S. Education Department grant she
co-edited "Women in the World: Annotated History
Resources for the Secondary Student."

Jean was a long time fighter for peace and social
justice. One of the proudest moments of Jean's very
long life was on June 22, 1982, when at the age of 68,
Jean was arrested during an anti-nuclear demonstration
involving 1,300 nonviolent protesters at Lawrence
Livermore Lab in the East Bay. In Jean's later life,
one of her greatest joys was frequently traveling
internationally. She also loved music - Paul Robeson,
Pete Seeger & The Weavers, Edith Piaf and Three Tenors.
Jean is survived by her three children, Jeffry, Tony
and Jo; her 12 grandchildren; 12 great-grandchildren;
nephews Richard Evans and Don Evans, and nieces Pamela
Wilkinson, Barbara Harrington, and Elinor Reed; and
scores of friends and admirers. No memorial service is
planned at this time. Jean was a founding member of the
International Museum of Women (IMOW) and contributions
to IMOW may be made in her name. On-line contributions
can be made at www.imow.org and checks sent to IMOW, PO
Box 190038, San Francisco, CA 94119-0038. If you have
questions you may contact Irene Morrison at IMOW,
415-543-4669, ext 27.


The family may be contacted by emailing
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