Mission Week Speakers Urge More Knowledge and Action on Racial Inequality

It’s time for new talk – and a new commitment to change – about race in America. It’s time for a new version of The Talk in America.

Those were key themes during an “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” program at Marquette Law School on Tuesday that was part of Marquette University’s Mission Week for this school year. A capacity audience in the Appellate Courtroom heard thoughts from three nationally known figures in social and racial justice causes during the program, which was titled “Racial Justice: Black, White, and the Call of the Church.”

The Talk? That’s the term used often for the conversation many African American parents have with their children about how to behave out in the community so that they don’t get in trouble – or worse – with police officers.

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Women in Wisconsin Law: Jessie Jack Hooper

This is the third part of a three-part series on Women in Wisconsin Law. 

Not all women who were influential in Wisconsin law were lawyers. Among these influential women was Jessie Jack Hooper, a suffragist and politician who made history by running for one of Wisconsin’s seats in the United States Senate in 1922.

Jessie Jack Hooper was born on a farm in Iowa in 1865. In 1888, she married Ben Hooper and moved to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, to begin a new chapter of her life. Mr. Hooper, a graduate from Columbia University Law School, was extremely supportive of his wife’s passion for the women’s suffrage movement. Even before women were given the right to vote, Mr. Hooper went to great lengths to share his right to vote with his wife. One year he would vote as he saw fit, and then the next year, he would vote according to his wife’s wishes.

Once in Oshkosh, Hooper joined a variety of progressive movements in the state, including the Women’s Club and the Wisconsin Federation of Women’s Clubs. Although she was active in a variety of organizations, she was primarily involved in the women’s suffrage movement as a member of the executive board of the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association.

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Women in Wisconsin Law: Olga Bennett

This is the second part of a three part series on Women in Wisconsin Law.

Although women were admitted to practice law in Wisconsin in 1879, it would be over one hundred years until the state’s first elected female county judge.  In 1970, Olga Bennett, a native of Vernon County, was the first woman elected and sworn in as a county judge in Wisconsin.

Bennett was born on May 5, 1908, in Viroqua, Wisconsin. Education played an important role throughout Bennett’s life.  In 1925 she graduated from Viroqua High School, and in 1928, she graduated with a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Wisconsin.  After taking time following her undergraduate studies to work at a local bank, she returned to her studies four years later.  After spending a semester at the Madison Business School, Bennett enrolled at the University of Wisconsin Law School in Madison, Wisconsin.  In 1935, she graduated from law school and was admitted to the state bar.

Upon graduating, Bennett served as a law clerk for State Supreme Court Justice John D. Wickham for five years.  Following this clerkship, she went into business with her father, who was also an attorney.  Together they ran the Bennett and Bennett law firm.  Before being elected to serve as a judge, Bennett held various positions in the legal community, including serving as the first female city attorney of Viroqua.

Although one might have expected that a larger county in the state, such as Madison or Milwaukee, would have been the first to elect a female county judge, it was small Vernon County with a population of only 28,000 that holds this title.  In April 1969, Bennett ran and was elected to the bench in Vernon County (courthouse pictured above at left), defeating incumbent County Judge Larry Sieger who was appointed by the governor in 1968.  In 1970, she took the oath of office and became the second woman to serve as a judge in Wisconsin.  

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