Robert L. Cord, who passed away on August 30, 2022, was a distinguished professor of political science and a pioneering constitutional scholar at Northeastern University for over 30 years. He was also a colleague with an impish streak.
Professor Cord’s cutting-edge scholarship—particularly with respect to free speech and the establishment clause—was on greatest display with his books Protest, Dissent and The Supreme Court (Winthrop Publishers, 1971) and Separation of Church and State: Historical Fact and Current Fiction (New York: Lambeth Press, 1982). He joined the Northeastern faculty in 1962 and became assistant professor of political science there in 1966. On account of illness, Bob was forced to give up teaching in 1996.
A formidable colleague in department meetings, few appreciated what a prankster he could be outside of the written agenda. Case in point: during my first semester as an assistant professor at Northeastern, in the hallway Bob Cord—to me a Very Senior Full Professor—struck up a conversation with decades-long legs. He began by asking where I was from. Then he asked if that’s where my parents also came from. When I told him I grew up on Long Island but my parents were from Brooklyn (technically a fallacy, because Brooklyn is geographically part of Long Island), he then volunteered that he himself was a Brooklynite. He then asked which neighborhood my parents came from, and what they did for a living.
“My late father”—he had died just two years before—“was from Brownsville,” I answered. “He was a high school science teacher before he went into business as a technical writer.”
“And your mother?”
“My mom is a nurse,” I answered. “From Bensonhurst.”
“That’s interesting,” he said. “I once dated a girl from Bensonhurst who was going to nursing school in New York.” He paused. “Flower Fifth Avenue Nursing School,” he mused.
“That’s where my mother went,” I told him enthusiastically, inspired by the coincidence.
“Yes,” my bachelor colleague, continued, nostalgically. “Her name was Helen.”
That’s when my political science hallway suddenly felt like an ice chamber.
“That’s my mother’s name, too,” I muttered.
“Helen…” And that’s when he who had been instrumental in the decision to hire me uttered my mother’s maiden name.
That’s when I felt my blood turn to ice. How romantically involved had my new, Very Senior colleague been with my own mother?
As it turns out, the real coincidence was the circumstances that gave rise to this practical joke. It turns out that: a) this colleague’s sister had gone to nursing school with my mother and, b) his sister and my mom had recently reconnected after decades of having lost contact. My mom boasted of her son becoming a professor at Northeastern University and her friend boasted of her brother already being a hot shot at Northeastern. That’s how he had the elements to weave this emotional initiation rite for my entry into the fraternity of social scientists.
He had an impish streak, this scholar of constitutional law and church-state separation. And along with his commanding approach to advising the department on how to proceed in the best direction, this is how I will remember Robert (Bob) Cord. ■
