Jean Hardisty, Ph.D.

Senior Scholar

Jean Hardisty was the founder and president emerita of Political Research Associates (PRA), a Boston-based research center that analyzes right wing, authoritarian, and anti-democratic trends and publishes educational materials for the general public. A political scientist with a B.A. and Ph.D. from Northwestern University, she left academia after eight years of teaching and researching conservative political thought to establish PRA in response to the emergence of the New Right in 1981. After 23 years, she retired from PRA in 2004 and served as a senior scholar with the Wellesley Centers for Women until her death in March 2015.

Dr. Hardisty was a widely published author and an activist for social justice issues, especially women's rights and civil rights, for nearly four decades. She served on the Board of Directors of the Highlander Center for Research and Education, the Ms. Foundation, the Center for Community Change. and the Center for Women Policy Studies. Her book, Mobilizing Resentment: Conservative Resurgence from the John Birch Society to the Promise Keepers, first published by Beacon Press in 1999, is available in paperback. Her most recent work, on race and child care in Mississippi, is on the WCW website.