Jo Freeman - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

Jo Freeman was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1945. Her mother was from Hamilton, Alabama, and had served during World War II as a first lieutenant in the Women's Army Corps, stationed in England. Soon after Jo’s birth she moved to Los Angeles California where she taught junior high school until shortly before her death. Freeman attended Birmingham High School, but graduated in the first class of Granada Hills High School in 1961. She received her B.A. with honors in political science from UC Berkeley in 1965. She began her graduate work in political science at the University of Chicago in 1968 and completed her Ph.D. in 1973. After four years of teaching at the State University of New York she went to Washington, DC as a Brookings Fellow and stayed another year as an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow. She entered New York University School of Law in 1979 as a Root-Tilden Scholar and received her J.D. degree in 1982. She was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1983.