The Volokh Conspiracy

Above the Law had this thread on the same topic back in February.

Too bad they didn't have RateMyProfessor.com back then.

I'll bet he would have gotten a chili pepper.

U of C divides Con Law into four classes, all elective: Con Law I through III and Crim Pro. Crim Pro, of course, covers things like the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. In a nutshell, Con Law I covers the original Constitution; Con Law II covers the First Amendment, and Con Law III covers the 14th Amendment. That's my recollection, anyway -- it's been about a decade for me.

Note that U of C is on a quarter system (3 quarters per academic year, with the fourth quarter being summer), so classes are only about a dozen weeks long.

I had always heard great things about Obama as a professor, but when it came time to take Con Law III, I had to chose between taking the class with him and taking it wit David Strauss, another great U of C professor. With no disrespect whatsoever toward Professor Strauss, who was a great teacher, I really wish I had picked Obama instead of Strauss.

I took one of his classes, and I'm a bad person. Sadly, Obama still hasn't gone far enough in renouncing me and my views.

Out of curiousity, how much would an adjunct law professor at a place like Chicago get paid? I always assumed that the per-course rate for law was significantly better than that in arts and letters at the same intitution. But you law-school types will never tell us.

Waldensian--The joke just hit me. Never mind.

(I thought this was some reference to his teaching that I wasn't getting.)

Did Obama even publish a note in the Harvard Law Review?

Waldensian--The joke just hit me. Never mind.

It's not your fault. It's a fairly weak joke. :)

On a per hour basis, adjunct teaching pays poorly for professionals (lawyers, physicians, engineers, accountants), in comparison to their day job. It gets much more worthwhile after you've been teaching the same course for a couple semesters and you don't really need a lot of prep. Still, straight outside-of-job consulting would pay two or three times as much. You do it because its fun, its career enhancing, or you are an egomaniac of some kind. In my case, all three nicely coincided.

If his position was "lecturer" then he did not merit the title of "professor" and he should know better than to say he was a professor.

That's not quite right. Professor does serve as a term of academic rank, yes, but it also serves as the generic term for a (head) instructor at the university level. I've had several professors who weren't tenure-track faculty; one didn't even have a PhD and thus wasn't qualified for a tenure-track position. Nonetheless it would have been unimaginable rude (and petulant) to refer to them as "Lecturer" or "Instructor", even though those were, technically, their official positions at the school.

Actually anonymousacademic, he was a "professor" and was offered a tenure-track position, which he declined.

Oh please: given the law school's mad desire to be associated with a possible president it would be more than plausible that the administration would rise to the "defense" of Senator Obama, even at the risk of obfuscation. Really, what, if anything, does the following quote from the statement you cite even mean:

"Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors,"

Regarded by whom? If by the faculty, why doesn't the faculty label them as actual, you know, professors? The University goes to great lengths to create gradations of status, both subtle and gross, between everyone here. It's only because the law school's interests and Obama's line up in this election that the law school has suddenly declared that a distinction it maintains isn't really a difference.

@Waldensian: don't sell yourself short; I thought it was pretty funny.

Many thanks, but for crying out loud KEEP IT DOWN. DB loves to delete my posts.

Most people outside of academia have little understanding of the meaning of academic titles and consider anyone who teaches in a university to be a "professor". As a result, it is common practice, and entirely appropriate, for a university instructor to say, to a lay person, that he or she is a "professor". Obama could only be faulted for saying that he was a "professor" if he held some title other than "(Full) Professor" if it was clear that the question was about his academic rank, which seems not to have been the case.

I heard that he offered a class (election law, maybe?) that was taught early Monday mornings and late Friday afternoons due to his schedule in the Illinois Senate. Apparently, the class filled up. As a current law student, I feel confident saying that filling up classes at these times reflects an extraordinarily good reputation. There's no way I would take an optional class that a) ruined any chance at a three- or four-day weekend and b) made me get up early Monday morning and stay late on Friday unless I knew it was going to be good.

"Professor"? Americans have never made the distinction that Europeans have on this one. Generally, we treat everyone who regulalry teaches college classes as "a professor." There are inevitably p***ks on campus who are VERY concerend about the gradations. But they really should get bit.

The distinction would also be upheld in academic publishing. Had Obama written a book on con law, an academic publisher might say he "teaches law" at Chicago. But not that "he is a professor of law" at Chicago.

Big deal.

Hoosier, I believe the distinction, in practice, is that academics bitterly cling to their gradations, whereas students just call everyone "professor."

It would be too awkward for students to keep track of titles, sometimes use the wrong title, or to refer to their teachers as "Lecturer Smith" or "Distinguished Professor Johnson."

But academics, among themselves, expect each other to get their titles right. Further, everyone expects academics to be honest and accurate on their resumes, or when they formally introduce themselves.

Thorley -- there are plenty of ways to fulfill the substantial writing requirement without cutting into Wine Mess, and there are plenty of seminars that don't fill up.

The few anecdotal stories I have heard have all been positive, even from a couple people on the right side of the political spectrum.

Also, Obama apparently had amazing teaching evaluations. I remember the Sun-times said he had the second highest rating for that period of time (behind David Strauss). Not sure what measure they were using though (as most people here know, those course evaluations have a lot of questions in them).

I'm pretty sure all of Obama's old course evaluations would be available to current students in our library, but I'm probably too lazy to check. I did, however, enjoy seeing that Obama's old exams and a couple of his exam memos are still available to students on the library's website.

PS: The person who broke down UChicago's ConLaw courses was a bit off (unless it was different back then). We actually have four ConLaw courses that I know of:

Constitutional Law I: Governmental Structure
Constitutional Law II: Freedom of Speech
Constitutional Law III: Equal Protection and Substantive Due Process
Constitutional Law IV: Speech and Religion

These are just the "basic courses", there are obviously other ConLaw or ConLaw-related courses.

Ha! Waldensian's funny.

My pathetic fishing for compliments is going great!! :)

As reported in both Powerline and the National Review, the Harvard Law Review had fewer citations during Obama's year as President than during almost any other year, which suggests that Obama used his position to publish far-left articles.

Maybe you missed the earlier discussion on this. Since articles are chosen for publication several months before each issue appears, that is more a comment on the previous year's editor.

MS,

What do you have against Bill Clinton? Recessions are inevitable and the 2000-2001 one wasn't severe. And true, Kosovo is a mess--but it's probably better than it would have been if Milosevic had been allowed to keep it.

I think it strange that people want to attack or defend his teaching at school as a reflection of political support.

I've had many law professors that were excellent but I would never vote for them for any office at all. The two are unrelated except to the limited extent that it shows he has or doesn't have some basic skills as a speaker and teaching.

No one doubts his speaking abilities.

Maybe it does and maybe it doesn't.

One of the things I find most interesting about Obama's candidacy is his seeming open mindedness toward ideas and his ability to recognize that reasonable people might differ about public policy issues.

I think you see this quality (having it or lacking it) very clearly in law professors. Some professors cannot stomach any challenge to their ideas and are contemptuous of students who ask the wrong sort of questions.

Others are much more open minded about ideas, and are willing to engage that discussion, at least to the extent it doesn't get too far off topic from the class.

I would certainly not vote for the former, but I would consider voting for the latter.

Had students from Obama's classes reported that he clearly voiced his opinions about constitutional/political issues in class and been clearly dismissive of any students who raised alternative viewpoints, that would have seriously hurt his image in my eyes.

I never have and never will be a single issue voter, I'd even consider voting for a candidate that I disagree with on a majority of issues if I trust their ability to evaluate evidence and make good decisions.

However, it's that same trait of not being open to the consideration of other ideas that, in my opinion, has been one of the worst aspects of the Bush Presidency, and is one of the things I'd fear most in a Clinton presidency. I'm not terribly sure about McCain yet. My initial impression of him was good because he was willing to cross party lines on occasion, but other stories have indicated that he's not so much open to other ideas as he has very clear ideas in his head that transcend party loyalties.

One of the things I find most interesting about Obama's candidacy is his seeming open mindedness toward ideas and his ability to recognize that reasonable people might differ about public policy issues.

That's a pretty low bar, no?

I had him for both "Racism and the Law" and "Voting Rights." Voting rights was the election law class that was early monday morning and Fridays at happy hour. It's true that it filled up and pretty much everyone attended. He's great in the classroom, a quick wit, and pretty balanced. My politics were farther left at the time and I remember often wishing he'd come out a different way when he was in agreement with the more conservative students in the class. Talking to friends across the political spectrum since he started running, pretty much everyone recalls him being very fair to all sides. I don't agree with his spending preferences, but I think he has a robust understanding of law &econ thinking and will concede cost/benefit analysis.

I remember someone in class once asked who was his favorite circuit judge to argue in front of. He said Posner, because Posner was smart enough to know when you were right.

The point about whether he was a professor is nonsense. I was one of many minority students pushing for greater diversity among the faculty. At the time, the deans were explicit about him being offered a full faculty position. As someone else noted, Posner and Easterbrook are both "Senior Lecturers" and, regardless of your political beliefs, should be regarded as academic titans. Barack had other goals, and back then was interested in national politics.

Final notes, regardless of your stripes in class, he was a wonderful mentor, and continued to correspond with a number of my classmates after we graduated. He's one of the most charming people I've ever met, he'll listen to and engage with everyone's ideas (he's exactly the opposite of a Catherine McKinnon) and when you're around him you can't help but like him.

Obama's 2004 Senate Web site characterized it as a "senior lecturer":

Currently a senior lecturer specializing in constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School, Obama has served on the boards of some of Chicago's leading foundations and chaired the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a $50 million philanthropic effort to reform the public schools.

He now characterizes it as, "Soon after, he returned to Chicago to practice as a civil rights lawyer and teach constitutional law." Although those Web sites are one thing, I think there's been a lot of ink spilled over how he's referred to his position in speech rather than in print.

Not at all. It puts us on notice that if we elect this guy we'll have only ourselves to blame for a U.S. President with a less impressive academic resume than all the previous U.S. Presidents who were magna cum laude presidents of the Harvard Law Review.

Heh. Indeed.

Anonymous Hoosier: I like the name. And, yes, if one actually reads the Reagan talk--which was not even in Philadelphia, by the way--it comes across quite differently.

But, then, that would undercut the impact of the attack on Reagan. Which, rather than he truth, is the point.

Byron Rodriguez
I had him for both "Racism and the Law" and "Voting Rights."
Byron, can you tell us more about the Racism and the Law class? That's the sort of useful inside information that goes beyond sound bites.

I didnt take Obama's class because he was serving in the IL Leg at the time and thus insisted on holding lectures at 8 am Monday and 3 pm Friday. Heck w that. I take Mary Ann Case's class on the same subject instead and got my best grade at U of C (love that Equal Prot Clause).

From conservative friends of mine who took Obama's class, I hear it was great, and even though they disagree with his policies, they're proud to have a future president on their transcript.

BTW, where's Gaius Marius to call him Barack HUSSEIN Obama???

eddiehaskel,

Give DB credit. Whatever he may have hoped or expected the answers to be, he just asked the question. And the comments here from ex-Obama students support the already weighty anecdotal evidence that Obama is, as advertised, someone who gives respectful airing to all views.