Michael George Cooke (September 11, 1934 – September 11, 1990) was an American academic. Cooke graduated from

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

in 1957, and completed doctoral studies at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

in 1962. He then began teaching at Yale, accepting an assistant professorship at his alma mater in 1968. Cooke later taught at the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...

and at

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

, before returning to Yale in 1971. Cooke was a defendant named for sexual harassment in the famous lawsuit

Alexander v. Yale ''Alexander v. Yale'', 631 F.2d 178 (2d Cir. 1980), was the first use of Title IX of the United States Education Amendments of 1972 in charges of sexual harassment against an educational institution. It further established that sexual harassment ...

that helped established the legal responsibility of universities to curtail sexual misconduct. Cooke was later appointed by Yale as the Bird White Housum Professor of English Literature in 1987. Cooke was injured in a traffic collision in

Woodbridge, Connecticut Woodbridge is a New England town, town in New Haven County, Connecticut, New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 9,087 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. The town center is listed on the National Register of H ...

, on September 11, 1990, his 56th birthday. He died later that day at St. Raphael's Hospital in

New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cooke, Michael George 1934 births 1990 deaths Yale University alumni Yale University faculty Road incident deaths in Connecticut University of California, Berkeley alumni 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers