Jean Athey is a member of World Beyond War’s Coordinating Committee. She is also coordinator of Peace Action Montgomery (MD) and a member of the steering committee with Maryland United for Peace and Justice, organized to form a state-wide affiliate of Peace Action in Maryland. She was formerly chair of the Steering Committee of Fund Our Communities, Not the Pentagon (www.OurFunds.org), a Maryland coalition composed of over 60 organizations whose mission was to establish a strong grassroots constituency for change in our nation’s priorities, away from war and militarism and towards peace and social justice. Jean is past co-chair of the Board of the national organization Peace Action.
The Fund Our Communities coalition sponsored town hall meetings throughout Maryland, organized a campaign to prevent a special tax break for Lockheed Martin, managed an innovative Pull the Pork political event, and sponsored a bus tour in MD called “Prosperity Not Austerity.” The campaign also attempted, unsuccessfully, to pass a bill in the state legislature designed to show that jobs need not be dependent on military spending.
In April, 2011, Jean went to Afghanistan on a peace mission in collaboration with Women for Afghan Women. In October 2008, she volunteered with the International Solidarity Movement in Palestine for the olive harvest and at the Jerusalem home of a family threatened with eviction. In 2006, she co-founded the Washington Region Religious Campaign Against Torture, a coalition of religious groups working to end U.S.-sponsored torture and hold accountable those who have participated in torture.
Jean has worked at the Federal Health Resources and Services Administration; taught at the University of Oklahoma; and served in the Peace Corps in Tunisia. She received a Ph.D. in social services policy and administration from the University of Chicago.
