Services set for Friday at Waller Funeral Hom

Hoffheimer, Mike

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eGrove (Univ. of Mississippi)

University of Mississippi eGrove University of Mississippi News 6-21-2017 UM Law School Mourns Loss of Professor George Cochran Mike Hoffheimer Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/umnews Recommended Citation Hoffheimer, Mike, "UM Law School Mourns Loss of Professor George Cochran" (2017). University of Mississippi News. 5828. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/umnews/5828 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in University of Mississippi News by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact egrove@olemiss.edu. Search this website … SearchGeorge Colvin CochranUM Law School Mourns Loss of Professor GeorgeCochranServices set for Friday at Waller Funeral HomeJUNE 21, 2017 BY MIKE HOFFHEIMEROXFORD, Miss. – George Colvin Cochran, a 45-year law professor atthe University of Mississippi, died Monday (June 19) at the age of 80from complications of melanoma.An educator and civil rights scholar, Cochran leaves a singular,enduring legacy with the School of Law and a half-century’s worth of itsgraduates.“It is hard to imagine the law school without George Cochran,” saidDebbie Bell, the school’s interim dean. “His students remember him forhis intense, challenging classes and his amazing memory of materialsand cases.“Over the years, he was quietly generous to students in need, a fact anumber of our graduates have mentioned to me in the last two years.”Visitation is scheduled for 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday (June 22) in West Hallat Waller Funeral Home in Oxford, and services will be at 11 a.m.Friday (June 23), also at Waller Funeral Home. In honor of Cochran’sservice to our country, the flag of the U.S. Army will be flown.A campus memorial service and celebration will be planned later.Cochran was born Dec. 1, 1936 in Maysville, Kentucky. He graduated from Cranbrook School inMichigan and from North Carolina State, where he studied textile engineering, played football and wasactive in student politics.In his early 20s, Cochran worked briefly for his family’s Kentucky textile mill before serving two years asa second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Airborne infantry at Fort Benning, Georgia.Cochran graduated first in his class from the University of North Carolina Law School and served aseditor-in-chief of the law review. He was inducted into the Order of the Coif, the premier legal honorsociety.He clerked for U.S. Supreme Court justices Stanley Reed and Earl Warren, including service on thePresident’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.Cochran practiced law with Steptoe and Johnson between 1966 and1968. That year, he and his wife,Nancy Newbold Cochran, welcomed his only child, daughter Reed. Though he and Nancy ultimatelydivorced, Cochran considered her to be his greatest love and their daughter to be his crowningaccomplishment.Cochran worked as director of the Duke Center on Law and Poverty from 1968 to ’72, when he accepteda faculty position at the UM School of Law. Here, he found his true calling as educator and scholar.Cochran arrived in Oxford while Mississippi was still resisting the outcomes of Brown v. Board ofEducation of Topeka, the Legislature having expelled faculty members who supported the SupremeCourt decision.As one writer has observed, “Professor Cochran joined the law faculty at a turning point. From early inhis career, he played an important role in transforming the law school from a parochial institution into anationally respected” law school.He taught constitutional law, federal jurisdiction, Supreme Court practice and related seminars. For 19years, he also taught during summers at Fordham Law School in New York.Read the story …Read the story …Follow us on socialCampus BriefsStudents Learn ‘Real Politics’ inWashington, D.C., Winter SessionOXFORD, Miss. – Eleven University ofMississippi students spent their winterbreak learning about the people who workbehind the scenes of the Americangovernment in Washington, D.C. Lead byJonathan Klingler, assistant professor ofpolitical science, the students of Pol 391:Applied Politics met not with candidates,but with the people who make candidates’More Posts from this CategoryThank You To OurDonorsYoung Alumna Gives Back to Schoolof AccountancyOXFORD, Miss. – Stephanie JenningsTeague, of Chicago, sees her commitmentof $100,000 to the Patterson School ofAccountancy‘s new building at theUniversity of Mississippi as a means ofsaying “thank you.” “It is a way to show asmall token of my appreciation to OleMiss, the faculty and staff, and theaccountingMore Posts from this CategoryOle Miss In the NewsReuters: Keep an Eye on the MoneySupplyU.S. inflation roller coaster prompts freshlook at long-ignored money supply ByMichael S. Derby NEW YORK – Theamount of money sloshing around the U.S.economy shrank last year for the first timeon record, a development that someeconomists believe bolsters the case forU.S. inflation pressures continuing toabate. The Federal Reserve’sNews Releases UM COVID-19 Video Gallery University Communications Ole Miss Homepage Ole Miss News BlogFacebookTwitterLin edInEmailCopyLinkSMSPrintFriendlySharFacebookTwitterInstagramLinkedInYouTubeChannelAlso in New York, he collaborated with the Center for Constitutional Rights, considering one of itsfounders, Morton Stavis, to be among his greatest friends and mentors.Altogether, Cochran was attorney of record in 17 constitutional law cases. He and his good friend WilburColom successfully challenged single-sex education at Mississippi public universities in the U.S.Supreme Court.Cochran was also one of the nation’s leading experts opposing punitive actions against public interestattorneys. And he was instrumental in establishing the Mississippi Innocence Project, which wasrenamed the George C. Cochran Innocence Project by unanimous vote of the faculty in 2015.To his students, Cochran was best known for his spirited and provocative lectures on constitutional law,civil liberties and, especially, free speech. Former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz, one ofhis students, wrote, “He offended liberals and conservatives alike. He taught us that the price for living ina free society is that we will be offended. Get over it. This is what democracy does. We can’t befrightened by speech.”While the professor was notorious for his gruff demeanor and salty language, Cochran’s students neverdoubted his devotion. He continued teaching after retirement, through this spring. Indeed, he was in theclassroom only a few weeks before his passing.Cochran’s favorite hobby was sailing. He and Nancy owned “Young Tiger” in the early years of theirmarriage on the Chesapeake Bay. Later, he and Colom would sail “Misty” to Cuba, by legal invitation,with their daughters Reed and Niani among the crew.Cochran is survived by his daughter, Reed Cochran; his sister, Frances Cochran Sanders; niece, AnnSanders Anderson-Behrend; and nephews William Henley Sanders, John Poyntz Cochran and WilliamDuffield Cochran IV.In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the University of Mississippi Foundation, 406 UniversityAve., Oxford, MS 38655, designated for the George C. Cochran Scholarship in Law Endowment or tothe George Cochran Innocence Project.FILED UNDER: NEWS RELEASESRead the story …More Posts from this CategoryRetu rn  to  to p  o f  p a ge Copyright © 2023 · Th e Un iversity  o f  M ississ ip p i

UM Law School Mourns Loss of Professor George Cochran

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UM Law School Mourns Loss of Professor George Cochran

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