Beverly Blair Cook
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Beverly Blair Cook | |
|---|---|
| Born | December 10, 1926 |
| Died | January 18, 2008 (aged 81) |
| Occupations | Professor and political scientist |
| Known for | Work in judicial behavior and the selection of female judges |
| Spouse | Cornelius P. Cotter |
| Children | 8 |
| Awards | Lifetime Achievement Award from the APSA's Law and Courts section |
| Academic background | |
| Education | Wellesley College (B.A., 1948); University of Wisconsin–Madison (M.A., 1949) |
| Alma mater | Claremont Graduate University (Ph.D., 1962) |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Political Scientist |
| Institutions | Iowa State University; California State University, Fullerton; University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee |
Beverly Blair Cook (December 10, 1926 – January 18, 2008) was an American professor and political scientist. She is best known for her work regarding judicial behavior, public opinion and judicial decisions, and the selection of female judges.[1]
Cook received a B.A. degree in political science from Wellesley College in 1948 and an M.A. degree from University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1949. After a brief period in which she raised her first four children, she resumed her studies and received a Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate University in 1962.[2]
Career
Cook taught political science at Iowa State University from 1949 to 1950. After receiving her Ph.D., she taught at California State University, Fullerton until 1966, where she earned tenure. She published a book the next year, The Judicial Process in California, which connected the judicial process to the political process.[3]
In 1967, she transferred to the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. There, she taught briefly in the School of Social Welfare before joining the Department of Political Science, where she was a professor from 1970 to 1989 and a professor emerita from then on.[2][4]
In the 1970s, she contributed greatly to the study of judicial socialization. She studied and wrote about the impact of institutional socialization practices in court systems. In particular, she looked at state and federal courts, not just the U.S. Supreme Court, which was the focus of many of her academic peers.[2] In 1977, she began to gather data about women who served as judges. She used this data to populate a groundbreaking database of every female state and federal judge. Using this data, she wrote about the factors that enable women to become judges, including gatekeepers who take women candidates seriously.[2]
She served on the Board of Overseers for the National Science Foundation's project on the U.S. Supreme Court, which culminated in the United States Supreme Court Judicial Database, which has remained in continuous use.[2][5]
In 1979, she co-founded the National Association of Women Judges (NAWJ). Their numbers grew, and in 1980, Cook led the NAWJ in attending a special tour of the U.S. Supreme Court. At the time, there were no women among the Supreme Court justices. The crowd of NAWJ members in the building so affected Chief Justice Warren E. Burger that, one month after their visit, the Court dropped "Mr." (in reference to justices) from its official record-keeping practices.[2] (A year later, Sandra Day O'Connor became the first woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.)
After retiring, Cook continued to write essays on legal matters, including on U.S. Supreme Court Decisions.[3] In 2000, Cook received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Political Science Association's Law and Courts section.[4]