Helen Jackson honored by endowment for UW chair

Published 11:17 pm Tuesday, March 11, 2008

A $1 million endowment to the University of Washington’s Jackson School of International Studies will bring an increased focus on human rights issues and serve as a continuing tribute to a longtime Everett icon, Helen Jackson.

Widow of Everett’s most famous native son, the late Sen. Henry M. Jackson, Helen Jackson’s name will be attached to the endowed chair of human rights at the university.

“What we see this doing is creating an anchor for a center for human rights,” said Anand Yang, director of the Jackson School. “This is something both the senator and Helen were keenly interested in.”

The Jackson School was named for the late senator. It is in the university’s College of Arts and Sciences and has undergraduate and graduate programs centering on numerous countries and regions. At the moment, it has no doctorate course in human rights, but that might change.

One of the largest contributors to the school is the Jackson Foundation, which was started in 1983 soon after the senator’s death. Helen Jackson remains on the board, which directs foundation funding.

The foundation’s aim is to further the unfinished work of Henry Jackson in the fields of international affairs, education, human rights and the environment.

“We were looking for a meaningful gift and decided on a $1 million chair in her honor,” said Lara Iglitzin, foundation director.

Helen Jackson was the life partner of the senator and stood beside him in human rights work and other issues, Iglitzin said.

“There were lots of areas she cares about in Sen. Jackson’s legacy and work, but (human rights) is very close to her heart,” Iglitzin said.

The endowment will mean the appointment of a full-time professor who would teach and bring together various specialities and activities already at the university that touch on human rights issues.

Peter Jackson, son of the late senator, said his ultimate goal is establishing a full-blown human rights center in the Jackson School.

Although Helen Jackson remains on the foundation board of directors, her role has diminished recently because of declining health, Peter Jackson said.

He said his mother shrugs off the honor, but told him: “Well, I don’t deserve it. I’m glad it’s something that will benefit young people. That’s what Scoop was interested in.”

In the 1970s, Helen Jackson worked with the wives of other U.S. senators to better the rights of Jews then behind the Iron Curtain in the Soviet Union.

In 1991, Elena Bonner, the widow of Soviet human rights physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov, lectured on human rights at the UW and then came to Everett for a “thank you gathering” for Helen Jackson, her son said.

Jackson School officials are excited about the endowment and emphasis on human rights, many pieces already in existence.

“The gift will really cement these various bits that exist at the campus … and bring all these pieces together to create a structure to facilitate and enhance what we’re already doing in several areas,” Yang said.

He envisions the school becoming a center where Congressional members, for example, who are setting out on a fact-finding mission abroad, come to get the latest insights on human rights in the countries they intend to visit.

“I can imagine the center sponsoring lots of events that bring the community leaders together,” Yang said.

The Jackson School is expected to make an application to start a doctorate degree in the human rights field.

“Helen has always been committed to scholarship,” Iglitzin said, and the new emphasis could attract the top students around the nation.

“She provided the moral leadership and has been our leader in trying to further (Sen. Jackson’s) legacy,” Iglitzin said.

Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-3447 or jhaley@heraldnet.com.