Was Obama A "Professor"?
My offhand comment about Barack Obama having been a "professor" at the University of Chicago triggered some surprising feedback: Was Obama really a professor, the questions run, or was he just an instructor or some kind of lecturer? I had thought this question was resolved a long time ago, but I guess not. Anyway, the University of Chicago Law School put out the following press release on the question a while back:
From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School's Senior Lecturers has high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined.So the school says he was a professor; he was carrying a full teaching load; he was teaching serious courses like con law; and (if I recall correctly from my time visiting at Chicago) he had a permanent faculty office in the law school. Labels are funny things in academia, as Tim Wu has discussed. But to my mind, Obama was a professor.
christian : muslim :: law school professor : ???
"christian : muslim :: law school professor : ???"
Retard?
Okay, that wasn't productive. But it was funny.
(I'm not ambitious enough to go back and find out when that characterization changed.) Whether a "senior lecturer" means "professor" is a different matter... but I think it's notable that he, at one point, called himself "senior lecturer."
Anyway, the only meaningful title in law is "partner." (Well, maybe "Chief Justice" also ranks.)
Good point. And that press-release has some suspicions aspects to it that makes it look forged -- the official seal is off and the font is not typical of U Chicago releases. Fake!!! Call Powerline!!!
"Summer associate" was also a title I very much enjoyed -- it was definitely among the best positions I've had in law.
Prof. Kerr, tell me — with a straight face — that if GWU Law School, in a periodic revision to your web page, accidentally changed "Professor of Law" to "Associate Professor of Law" or (gasp!) "Assistant Professor of Law" (and Obama never even merited that title, which is commonly understood to apply to people on a potential tenure track), you wouldn't call up the webmaster and ask them to make a correction.
Tell me that on that happy day when you ascend to an endowed chair, you won't carefully proof-read the way that new title appears on your webpage.
Tell me that if a junior member of your faculty were caught having submitted a manuscript for publication to various law reviews in which he misrepresented his status (and claimed to be, say, an associate professor instead of an assistant professor), that would not be treated by your faculty caucus as an act of academic dishonesty that would impair his future tenure prospects.
Obama has orally described himself as a "law professor" many times. Well, hell, I was an associate at two law firms for seven years, a partner at another three years, a shareholder at another for two years, and I've been "of counsel" to two other firms. Never — not once — have I represented myself as a "partner" when I wasn't (not even when I was a shareholder, which was the functional equivalent, in that firm's nomenclature, of a partner at other firms). I didn't do that because doing so would have been lying.
Bottom line, I really don't care what you consider Obama to have been. I do care when he represents himself to have been something he wasn't. That his buddies at Chicago have blessed his lies retroactively doesn't make them not lies.
Yes. He was a professor at U of C. "Senoir lecturer" is not a portable term, that is, it doesn't mean the same thing at one university that it may mean at another. For *public* purposes--as opposed to tenure-and-promotion committee purposes--he was a law professor.
There's no ethical or practical difference, in other words, between how Obama describes himself to the American public while running for office and how he might describe himself to a tenure-and-promotion committee.
Does anyone seriously argue that if he's been truthful and accurate — if he had said, for example, "I've been a constitutional law instructor" instead of "I've been a constitutional law professor" — the public would have been unable to process the accurate statement?
We can argue all day long about whether Obama has or hasn't been "bi-partisan," for instance, or whether he is or isn't "post-racial." Those things are subjective. His job title isn't. It was an objective fact, and he's repeatedly misrepresented himself (to make himself appear more highly credentialed and serious than he actually is).
Given that his employer said he was a professor, tenure is a red herring. Suppose a university somewhere is formed without any tenured faculty at all. Are you going to suggest that all of the professors there are not actually professors?
Or maybe VC has spoiled me. Tony Kornheiser had the attorney Abbie Lowell, whom he calls "the smartest man in Washington", explaining the Heller decision on his show. When Tony asked him whether this applies to cities and states, Abbie flatly stated that the Supreme Court is the supreme law of the land, making no mention whatsoever of the Incorporation issue, not even in a simplified form. It was sadly obvious that this successful attorney, who routinely goes on radio shows to comment on the law, knew nothing about the Incorporation debate. Outside VC, I think the bar for real understanding of constitutional issues is set pretty low.
Every time this comes up I'm amazed at the seeming intentional ignorance. What Obama's is referring to as being a "law professor" is the general occupation of teaching a subject matter at an institution of higher education, which is more than appropriate when describing the general nature of one's employment to a non-academic audience. Had he been describing the position as "University of Chicago Professor of Law", and asserting that he held the title of "Professor" as opposed the general occupation "law professor", this kind of outrage would be justifiable, but that isn't the situation and we have a charade issue for people to kick around in stead of substantiative issues.
Not only does Obama know these title and status games, he's been a player.
A few years ago, a "concurrent assistant professor" used the phrase "assistant professor" in some (print) context. When the faculty dean found this out, he decided to DO AWAY WITH the "concurrent" title. He wanted to turn all concurrents into "lecturers."
I gave him a call, and asked, among other things: If I were to portray myself as "dean of faculty," would you feel compelled to do away with your own title? He relented.
I am a rare conservative at my institution. And yet I'm the only one who is an egalitarian when it comes to faculty titles. Again, when I see that Obama is getting a free pass on this, I get rather frustrated.
That is not PROF. Obama's fault, however.
At the hospital, when you're looking at the person holding his or her gloved hands above your chest as the anesthetic is taking hold, you don't want to hear the person next to him or her say, "Here's the scalpel you wanted, nurse."
Someone else, outside the profession, may not know the distinctions, and may not care. Obama knows. When its his credentials being discussed, it's his duty not to overstate them or (within his power) to permit them to be overstated.
I can see making A Big Deal out of this, if it were to transpire that Obama listed himself as "Professor of Law" on his c.v. at some point. That's a clear no-no.
But, as a previous poster noted, saying you are a "law professor" at U of C as a description is a different matter than using "professor of law" as a TITLE--especially on a c.v. or publication.
It is, along with first base coach, one of the two greatest jobs ever created.
This is, frankly, pathetic. When Obama was at the law school before he became a hot commodity, stduents called him professor, faculty called him professor (when they weren't calling him Barack or Senator), pretty much everyone called him professor. It used to be a joke within the school that someday, some pedantic nitpicker of a political opponent would accuse Obama of lying because his formal job title was "senior lecturer." Sad to see that day has come.
By your logic, if an associate professor at Chicago was running for president, he would need to refer to himself as a "Associate Professor" ever time in his speeches, because otherwise people might think he was a tenured full professor. Or do you think that anyone with the word "professor" in is title, including a Visiting Assistant Professor (usually a entry level person, not on tenure track, who is looking for a permanent job somewhere) can call himself a professor, but a Senior Lecturer at Chicago (including the likes of Richard Posner, Frank Easterbrook and Diane Wood) cannot?
It's 1986, and the case on trial in the 151st District Court of Harris County, Texas, is Pennzoil v. Texaco. Joe Jamail is cross-examining esteemed New York deal lawyer Martin Lipton. Jamail is going over some detail in some exhibit, which Lipton has previously identified as a memo that had been hand-delivered by a colleague for Lipton's review at some point during the negotiations with Getty. In the midst of his question, Jamail refers to the fellow as "your partner, Mr. Smith" (or whatever it was). Close paraphrase of what followed:
Lipton (interrupting): "— He's not my partner."
Jamail: "Oh, you didn't even know this Mr. Smith then?"
Lipton: "That's not what I said at all. I said Mr. Smith is not, and was not, my partner. He was an associate at my law firm, not a partner there. I'm a partner there, a name partner in fact."
Jamail: "Oh, ho! So are you saying he was a burglar? An intruder on the scene? He broke into your offices and stole that memo and then brought it to you to review?"
Lipton: "No, of course not, he was an employee acting under my direction and supervision, and bringing the memo to me was something he was doing in the course and scope of his responsibility."
Jamail: "Well, was he a lawyer at your firm?"
Lipton: "Yes, of course."
Jamail: "Was he an attorney at your firm?"
Lipton: "Yes, absolutely."
Jamail: "Was he among your firm's legal counselors who are authorized to do legal work for your firm's clients?"
Lipton: "Yes, subject to the supervision and oversight of our partners."
Jamail: "Can he go to the bathroom without permission, then?"
Lipton (angry): "Don't be absurd!"
Now, this was Jamail at his best, or worst, depending on one's point of view, but the jury loved it. Jamail took every opportunity during Lipton's cross-examination to encourage Lipton's considerable ego to display itself. And it was extremely successful: The jurors unanimously believed Lipton was a pompous gasbag who was completely willing to perjure himself for Texaco. They despised Lipton. (Jamail's strategy wasn't anti-Semitic, as some later argued after the verdict, but there definitely was some regional, i.e., anti-New York calculation going on in Jamail's tactics. But another famous, and Jewish, New York lawyer who testified for Pennzoil, by contrast, by contrast, the jury loved.)
If Barack Obama were a down-home good-old-boy who didn't much care in his own life about the difference between lecturers, assistant professors, and full professors with endowed chairs, then one might be more inclined than otherwise to forgive him for being sloppy (in a way that builds up his credentials more than they deserve). But Obama is not sloppy, and I don't believe that he's that kind of good old boy. I believe he's every bit as title-conscious as Martin Lipton was — which makes what he's done in puffing his own credentials inexcusable.
Is there really anyone who thinks that this is anything more than Obama trying to express that he taught law? When I was in law school (or undergrad, for that matter), I didn't distinguish between the professors (which is how I thought of all of them) on the basis of whether they were guest lecturers, senior lecturers, tenured faculty, etc - I didn't know, and I didn't care. I called them Professor (last name). When I spoke about them with others, I called them Professor (last name). Everyone I know did the same. It's just a short hand.
People like Bill Dyer who are insisting that this is evidence of dishonesty are themselves dishonest - they have an axe to grind, and they're going to grind it, truth be damned.
Although it shouldn't matter, I'm on the fence between McCain and Obama, but will probably end up voting for Obama. Let the ad hominem attacks begin.
Certainly, Senator Obama has more expertise and understand of constitutional law and precedent than someone like John McCain who is not a lawyer nor a constitutional scholar. However, it is easy to understand why people get upset as Obama tends to refer to himself as a constitutional law professor as prima facie evidence of the correctness of his political views rather than using the title to simply describe his past activities.
Obama's constitutional expertise consists of being recruited to U of C - apparently as a result of his celebrity stemming for his stint as editor of the Harvard Law Review and his book deal - and then teaching for 12 years while pursuing a political career and a brief stint in private practice.
Take a quick look at the current Senior lecturers at U of C. Most clerked for Supreme Court Justices, half are judges, and the only person who did not clerk for a US Circuit judge or Supreme Court judge is a successful economist, business executive, and business partner of Richard Posner. Conversely, Obama was a senior lecturer only 5 years removed from law school with minimal substantive legal experience. Therefore, while extending the title of Professor to a senior lecturer like Judge Posner makes sense, it just doesn't sit well seeing Obama use the title as a political weapon.
No answer, no acknowledgment.
Prof. Kerr, supplementing my previous questions: Would you sponsor a resolution before your faculty authorizing lecturers, instructors, adjunct faculty, or others whose job title does not include the word "professor" to nevertheless represent themselves in formal settings, either in writing or orally, as being "professors"? And: Do you think such a resolution would pass (if it weren't connected to someone with Barack Obama's current star appeal)?
Well, if he were in fact discussing his credentials and his title, then by all means, this is a dishonest foul. But all the evidence points to him using the wort "professor" to describe his occupation in general, and doing so in a way that most ignoramuses can grok without too much pain, not discussing the details of his job title.
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-- So the school says he was a professor; he was carrying a full teaching load; ... --
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I don't see "carrying a full teaching load" anywhere in the school's description.
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Otherwise, I see the dispute as typical puffery. Some candidates do it more than others. Obama isn't vying for a tenure position or some other exalted position in the lofty sphere of academia. He wants to live in the White House, and he needs to convince the voters that he's intelligent, wise, etc.
1. That Obama cares, and cares deeply, about these differences in title. There is absolutely no evidence of this as far as I am aware.
2. That Posner, Easterbrook and Wood do not call themselves as professors at Chicago in speech.
Your analogy to Lipton also falls completely flat. Obama is not misrepresenting his status. A professor, as I pointed out, can include a visiting assistant professor who is neither on tenure track nor particularly well respected. Indeed, on the pecking order, that visiting assistant professor will rank considerably lower than senior lecturers at Chicago. Moreover, note that in this case it is YOU who is being extremely keen to draw out every fine distinction in hierachy of job titles, which makes your counterpart in the analogy the "popmous gasbag" Mr. Lipton.
professor - accurate
lecturer - accurate
teacher - accurate
possible Obama job titles:
Senior Lecturer - accurate
Professor of Law - inaccurate
The key distinction, as pointed out by Hoosier (and maybe others I missed) is between a job description and a job title. Find a single instance where Obama used the title "Professor" (i.e., capital "P", no article), "Professor of Law" or "Professor of Constitutional Law," and you have a case. But calling himself a law professor (i.e., lower case "p" with the article) is not only consistent with the law school's authorized terminology, it's descriptively accurate. Considering how adamant the critics, including some here, claim to be about fastidiously using only the proper academic terminology, I'd think the routine semantic distinction between a description and a title would go without saying.
Please.
I personally would be pretty indifferent to whether lecturers call themselves professors, if it made no substantive changes in their authority.
"I'm on the fence between McCain and Obama, but will probably end up voting for Obama."
I'm firmly in Obama's camp, myself, although I certainly don't find McCain to be somehow unfit for the job.
It surprises me that both sides in this particular race seem hell-bent on demonising the opposite side. This is the first time in my adult life I've ever seen two candidates I wouldn't mind having as President. To my mind, this is the best possible scenario: no matter who gets elected, I'll be reasonably happy. I simply can't fathom the rationale behind all this venom and vitriol. Both candidates are sensible and well-qualified. I can write off the opposition to McCain as liberal insanity (I'm a Republican, so this is easy), but what exactly is the great opposition to Obama? Are the conservatives now every bit as crazy as the liberals?
Perhaps the "shareholder"/"partner" distinction in law firms is most appropriate. I'm sure all partners in "true partnerships" (although, most are limited liability partnerships, but whatever) appreciate your scruples in never referring yourself as a "partner" while holding an ownership stake in a professional corporation. But, seems that the many (most?) shareholders/directors/members of law firms routinely describe themselves as "partners" when speaking with people outside their own firm. This is especially true when dealing with people outside the legal community, because everyone knows what a partner of a law firm is, and no one knows or cares that it's connected to the form of the firm's business entity.
He is completely lacking experience and record that would justify his election.
I cannot say this enough: He is inexperienced and unknown. This is NOT the sort of person that should be nominated by one of the major parties.
Professor is a descriptive title. Nearly everyone person teaching in a law school classroom is described as by the term. I've even seen student writing fellows called professor before.
This is a little like insisting people are not "best friends," even though both insist they are.
When first gen college students whom I advise ask me "What do I call my teachers? I don't know if they al are 'Dr.' ", my response is always the same: Just call everyone who teaches a class "professor." No one is ever offended by that.
His lack of experience is a valid criticism. But this is hardly unique to Obama. Bush was governor for 5 years prior to being elected. Obama will have had 4 years in the Senate. Regardless of which is better experience, not much of a difference.
Come to think of it, as a liberal who's increasingly irritated with Obama's mad dash to the center/right, I think those of you who want to call him a lecturer are probably helping him at this point. Helps him to shed the ivory tower liberal image that he seems so desperate to avoid.
****
"My choices early in life were either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth there's hardly any difference."
- Harry S Truman -
I am losing a lot of sleep over this. Our republican democracy now comes down to whether 51% of voters "like" a candidate? Or think he'll bring "change"?
Burke would not have approved.
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"The prof in my multivariable class in undergrad opened the class by telling us to call him "Bob" and that he would ignore us if we tried to call him "Doctor" or "Professor.""
We have people like that. In the alternative rock arena--yes, I like that noise--some of us have latched onto the phrase 'snobbery-snobs.' These are people who insist that any sign of acceptance by the "industry" makes a musician a sell-out. This is how I view my colleges who insist on being called by their first names: "Look how much better I am than all those elitists!"
As former jobs go, you really think those are worse than "actor?"
So "Doctor" is to "Nurse" as "Senior Lecturer" is to "Professor"?
Maybe on Remulak. But not back here on planet Earth.
This strikes me as the relevant snippet from the press release. According to this, all Senior Lecturers are regarded as professors, so it seems like Obama's "buddies at Chicago" didn't intend to just target him with this statement. Seeing as it's their call, it's hard for me to find fault with it.
At U.Va., no one's doorplate says "Professor" on it. Just faculty names.
Show me any other case in which someone has made an issue of it.
"You are all weirdos."
Huh?
If this were unauthorized or otherwise improper, I trust some one at the law school will complain. They have conservatives. Have any of them complained?
Also, Barack Obama is a Christian.
Also, Barack Obama's religious mentor has never been Reverend Wright.
Also, Barack Obama's middle name is not, and has never been, "Hussein".
LOL!
Commenters on Posner's blog address him as "Professor Posner," and he seems to not hasten to object. One example is here.
This isn't a blatant contradiction of the claim you made, but it's nevertheless a bit of mildly interesting evidence.
Seriously. I went to college (and grad school), and I was never aware of the distinction between lecturer and professor.
It's kind of like the whole reporter/staff writer etc. thang that probably means a lot to those in the media biz, but if you are joe voter - a reporter is a guy who writes articles for the newspaper. Staff Writer? What's that?
Disclosure: I am NOT an Obama fan, but I think this is absurd. Not that discussions on a legal blog aren't often absurd (arcane trivial inanities and all) but CMON.
Professor means to most people - he taught at the University.
Since you are calling for public figures to avoid statements that are not "scrupulously ethical," I was surprised to find no complaint on your blog about these remarkable statements:
- We found the weapons of mass destruction
- He wouldn't let them in
- A wiretap requires a court order
Just to pick a few helpfully succinct examples.
But what possible reason would I have to be dishonest in Obama's favor here? I have not only endorsed McCain, but I am a member of the McCain campaign's Justice Advisory Committee; I given money to McCain; and obviously I will vote for McCain.
To the extent you imagine that I am being dishonest, why on earth would I be dishonest to help a candidate I oppose and disfavor a candidate I support? You of course can disagree with me if you like. But to suggest that I am being dishonest is complete bullshit, and you know it.
Actually, when I was in law school, faculty members were very proud to be addressed as "Mister," and that's actually the title they used on their office doors.
But the point, again, is not how others address him, but how he refers to his own credentials when he's presenting them for evaluation by the voting public. In that situation, he has an obligation not to smudge, not to fudge, not to puff, but instead to be precise -- even when speaking.
And again, as to the University of Chicago's after-the-fact blessing: Again, I believe this to be a special dispensation that does not accord with even their own usual usage and practice. It certainly doesn't accord with usage and practice in the academic world generally. And whatever they say now doesn't change the objective fact about his job title and position when he was there.
Mr. Coward: Are you familiar with the concept of "partner by estoppel"? When one holds himself out as a partner, and someone in the public reasonably relies upon that, then the purported "partner" becomes one in the eyes of the law -- including assuming joint and several liability in his personal capacity for partnership obligations. In the words of a popular politician, "Words have meaning." There's a large building on the edge of downtown Houston whose developer I once put into bankruptcy after getting, quite properly, an eight-figure summary judgment against him in his personal capacity based on his self-representation to lenders that he had been a "partner," despite his later insistence that he was merely intended to be a "limited partner."
That said, I agree that in some contexts, precision is less important than others. In the context of describing one's relative qualifications (as compared to the sitting POTUS) to voters, I believe precision is damned important, just as it was when this fellow asked lenders to make decisions on his venture's credit-worthiness in part based on his self-description as a partner.
Mr. Kowalski: In at least one documented occasion, Obama was indeed specifically discussing his credentials to opine on matters of constitutional law, as compared to those of the sitting president. But I'm repeating myself.
Steve P: The press release was put out, it says, in specifically in response to inquiries about Obama. The title of the press release is "Statement Regarding Barack Obama." To my knowledge, Obama is the first major party presidential nominee-presumptive to have had any affiliation with the University of Chicago Law School, so I presume that would be the explanation for why the propriety of presidential campaign statements like these hasn't come up before. Moreover: They didn't give this guy tenure. I've read Cass Sunstein as being quoted as saying if he'd wanted to get onto a tenure track, they'd probably have agreed to that. But then he'd have actually have to have published some kind of work of legal scholarship — something that he apparently has never, ever done.
(That he was able to not only remain on the Harvard Law Review but become its president without having to do so is yet another mystery about the Chosen One. Most such reviews have a "publish or perish, up or out" rule requiring students to write something publishable; most pick their editors in part on the basis of such compositions. Obama's campaign has denied that he's the author of any of the unsigned student notes published while he was there. So did HLR not have that requirement then, or did he find some way to dodge it?)
Jukebox: Judge Posner's not seeking a new job — the most prominent one in the world — in any part on the basis of how his blog readers refer to him. (I note that on his webpage at Chicago Law, they quite properly refer to him as "Judge Posner," a title which most folks would agree is more reverential and consequential than "Professor" anyway.) My point, once again, is this: In every speech and public appearance, though, Obama is touting his credentials, such as they are, for the precise purpose of persuading voters to vote for him. If he cannot be trusted to do that with accuracy and modesty, what can he be trusted with?
Nevertheless, you haven't answered my questions, which were genuinely put. In the Socratic method, I had hoped they would lead you to re-evaluate your initial conclusion, as well as confirming (from your first-hand experience as a tenured professor of law) some of what I believe to be true about academic attitudes, practices, and usage.
Lawman5000 wrote:
You're just wrong on your facts, sir or madam: Posner, Easterbrook, and Wood are all three clearly and appropriately identified at the TOP of their respective web pages as "Senior Lecturer[s] in Law."
Secondly, you're completely right, they didn't give him tenure. The offered it, but he refused on multiple occasions. On the other hand, he taught constitutional law. Is that relevant as to his informal title of a professor of law?
Thanks for the clarification.
To answer your irrelevant questions, I have no idea if I would call the website people to correct the error in title in your hypothetical. I was recently on a panel in which I was described as an "associate professor" (GW Law's "entry level" professorship) rather than a full professor, but I didn't correct them: I really don't care one iota what they call me, so it didn't occur to me to say anything. Also, I still carry business cards from 2001 that say I am an associate professor; I haven't bothered to get new business cards just because I became a full professor in 2006 (or was it 2007? I have no idea). I think you imagine a world in which professors are obsessed with such silliness; sorry I can't help you in that.
True, but you know that's not the point. You said that Posner was too "scrupulously ethical" to describe himself as a 'professor.' But I showed you that one or more of his blog readers address him that way. He doesn't seem to mind. He should and would, if the difference between 'senior lecturer' and 'professor' really amounts to more than a hill of beans, as you persistently allege. But Posner speaks English, so he realizes that a common definition of 'professor' is simply 'a teacher at a university.' Something you would realize too, if you were really interested in being "scrupulously ethical," rather than rabidly partisan.
As I suggested earlier, your sensitivity about "scrupulously ethical" statements seems to be highly partisan and selective.
And although it happened years ago, it is still true that those who are "scrupulously ethical" do not walk away from their commitments. (If your browser doesn't automatically scroll to the correct comment, it's at Nov 21, 2004, 6:07:51 PM.)
In fairness, I haven't seen any Professors of Law make an issue of this. The complaints all seem to come from others who are certain what an outrage this must be to the legal academy.
Let's grant he was a Professor.
Who was the last professor to become President. Woodrow Wilson?
That all worked out wonderfully, didn't it?
No, they offered him a tenure-track position. That's a chance to earn tenure, which is generally a multi-year process that involves not only teaching (which Obama did), but also doing significant legal research and writing, and then publishing the results of that (which Obama didn't do). Even as a student on a law review where it's usual to do so, he apparently didn't write and publish a student note; indeed, it's so very usual (and I suspect mandatory) that the first female president of the HLR, Susan Estrich (now a tenured and chaired law prof at USC), was quoted (even after her preferred candidate, Hillary Clinton, dropped out) as saying she thought his campaign was lying when it denied that he'd written and published anything in the Harvard Law Review.
Jukebox: I freely confess to being a partisan, and have never pretended otherwise. But if ad hominem attacks on me are the best you've got, that says more about you, I think, than it does either me or the subject of this post. Find me a place where Judge Posner, when discussing his own credentials, has referred to himself as a "constitutional law professor" or even just a "law professor," and I'll grant your point. I respectfully submit that his failure to rebuke to a commenter doesn't say much about his views on whether he's entitled to claim that title.
Prof. Kerr: I'm not being snarky or sucking up when I say that I am entirely willing to believe that you are not obsessed with rank and titles, and your anecdotal examples are to your credit. I'm sure you'd have done better than Marty Lipton, on cross-examination by Joe Jamail. I already knew you weren't a snob from your willingness to engage on legal topics with mere practicing lawyers and even (gasp!) laymen here and elsewhere. I wish that your modesty were typical of all lawyers and law professors, and will forebear from further argument on that point for now. And I appreciate your partial response, even though you deem my questions irrelevant; as an author here you have the right to make and enforce such rulings, and I am glad to see you instead leave it to your readers to draw their own conclusions as to relevance.
But you still haven't answered my a couple of my questions. As I re-read them, I must concede they were phrased as leading statements, rather than open-ended questions as Socrates would have suggested; I cross-examine for a living, alas, and that's reflected in my blog posts and comments.
So, if your patience permits, here are my questions again, re-stated and in some cases slightly reworded:
1. If a junior member of your faculty were caught having submitted a manuscript for publication to various law reviews in which he misrepresented his status (and claimed to be, say, an associate professor instead of an assistant professor), would that be treated by your faculty caucus as an act of academic dishonesty that would impair his future tenure prospects? (Same answer if instead of a law review article, it were a job application?)
2. Would you sponsor a resolution before your faculty authorizing lecturers, instructors, adjunct faculty, or others whose job title does not include the word "professor" to nevertheless represent themselves in formal settings, either in writing or orally, as being "professors" (without further limitation or qualification)? (I.e., would you bless and universalize the "rule" announced by the Obama press release?)
3. Do you think such a resolution would pass (if it weren't connected to someone with Barack Obama's current star appeal)?
Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and John Kerry were all accused of being serial exaggerators in describing their own roles in events — sometimes a bit, sometimes a lot. Kerry, for example, claimed to have served "two tours in Vietnam," when in fact he'd served one (entirely honorably) aboard the guided missile cruiser USS Gridley (which for some reason he never much talked about, to the later irritation of offended shipmates) and then less than a quarter of his projected one-year tour as a Swift Boat commander, and only six weeks of that in combat (which he nevertheless made the centerpiece of his convention biographical presentation). Some people thought his exaggeration was significant; others thought it was scandalous to even meention. To each his own.
But Obama has less of a public track record than any of those three. He's held one job that he almost never discusses (doing research and writing for a Manhattan financial publishing house), he rarely speaks about his experience during his short stint as a practicing lawyer, and some of us, even after reading his first book, are still clueless as to what exactly a "community organizer" is, or how that's supposed to be a qualification to run for public office. If he shares the "serial exaggerator" character flaw, I for one believe that's a relevant topic upon which voters may wish to base their judgments of him.
I know that you, like Obama, were a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, and that you were an executive editor of another fine law journal published there. You've since published as a faculty author in the HLR, among many other top-ranked law journals. My own experience was at another law school and journal, and indeed in an earlier decade. So:
By any chance, do you know whether the HLR had a "publish or perish, up or out" policy for its student members/editors earlier in the 1990s when Obama was there? And do you dispute my characterization of law review editors, in general, as being well aware of the differing job titles (and related status) of their potential contributors? Many thanks in advance.
Here is the University of Chicago's Law Faculty listing. There is a section for "lecturers" and a separate listing for "professors". All the "senior lecturers" -- including Posner, Easterbrook, Wood, and yes, Obama -- are listed under "professors".
Did the University hastily dump them all there after the fact as part of the grand Obamaspiracy? Let's check the Internet Archive at archive.org to see what the page looked like back in 2000. Yet again, Obama is listed with the professors, right under Martha Nussbaum. But the Obamaspiracy is mighty; we can't rule out the possibility that they have somehow corrupted the Internet Archive, perhaps even the very fabric of space-time itself...
Seriously, the school clearly considers him a professor, and clearly has considered him a professor for at least eight years. Can we move on?
Obama didn't.
Bill, nobody is confused. U of C made absolutely clear that "Senior Lecturer" is a sub-category of "professor." In calling himself a former law professor Obama has been scrupulously accurate.
1. You started off by the reasoning that academics in general, Professor Kerr in particular, and Barack Obama to boot, were and are all obesessed about their titles. Having zero evidence and faced with the uncontradicted statement of Professor Kerr that, in fact, he is not obsessed with his title and presumably will not, on the day he receives an endowed chair "carefully proof-read the way that new title appears on [his] webpage," I gather you have flip flopped on that line of logic.
2. You next argued that "Obama has orally described himself as a 'law professor' many times" and that, in contrast, you never represented yourself to be a partner when you were in fact a shareholder. You then drew the comparison to Marty Lipton and his rigid emphasis that an associate was not a partner. Since you are the only person here who seems to insist on the distinction between a shareholder and a partner, an associate and a partner, and a senior lecturer and a professor, the only reasonable inference was that you believed yourself to be a mirror image of Marty Lipton.
3. Faced with several comments that Posner, Easterbrook and Wood are all senior lecturers who may quite plausibly be regarded as law professors, you boldly asserted that they would never refer to themselves that way. Pointed to the fact that they are sometimes referred to in that way, you now insist that they would not "formally" refer to themselves that way.
4. Finally, having virtually no reasonable foundation for your partisan position, you assert that a presidential campaign is like presenting your resume to the voters, so the slightest inaccuracy is akin to resume fraud. By that logic, George Washington committed lied by calling himself a general, since he was a Major-General and not a full General -- and the fact that in 1976 Congress retroactively promoted him to five star rank is just ex post cover-up. Indeed, by your "every-statement-is-a-formal-job-application" standard in presidential campaigning, I would imagine that John McCain and Barack Obama are committing resume fraud every day.
Suppose instead of merely using the term in an attempt to build himself up in comparison to George W. Bush, Barack Obama had sent out a letter on Chicago Law School letterhead in which, under his typed name, he'd added "Constitutional Law Professor." Would that be okay?
That's just the tip of the iceberg, LM. You DO know that they are covering for Obama's culpability in the 9/11 plot, right?
He shoots! He sco — ah, heck, he dribbles off the edge of the rim. You systematically mistate my positions or conflate unequal things, friend.
I never accused Prof. Kerr in particular of being overly concerned with titles. I believe law school faculty members in general are very aware of them, however, as are law review editors.
That I'm capable of understanding some of the same legal concepts and distinctions as Marty Lipton doesn't make me as insufferably pompous as the jury found him to be in Pennzoil vs. Texaco. Those who are eager to excuse Obama's imprecisions, though, will certainly accuse me of that, and worse (as some here already have).
Nor did I fuss at Prof. Kerr for originally making a passing reference to Obama as a "professor." I've consistently maintained in my comments here that professionals, when describing their own credentials so that others may assess their qualifications, have a duty to be precise. In his speech, Obama was describing his own credentials — tooting his own horn. In my judgment, he was culpably imprecise, and knew or should have known that given his own background.
And finally, as I said in a very early comment, some descriptive terms are subjective. We can argue until the cows come home about which of the candidates is a "flip-flopper" because that's not an objective term with a definite meaning. "Senior Lecturer" is a term with a definite meaning, and it's the term that applied, but it didn't have the zing that "constitutional law professor" had, so Obama chose to embellish. You may, as I've said, think that's small potatoes. You may also think he's entitled to claim many other counter-factual things, just because you're inclined to cut him a lot of slack. I'm not. I'm frankly perplexed, if Prof. Kerr is — not because I think Prof. Kerr is a rabid partisan (I think he's a reasonable partisan), but because I think he's a man who knows and appreciates the value of precise language too.
If you're convinced I'm wrong, stop arguing with me. But please don't misstate or twist my arguments, and then claim victory.
Number of times on this page that Judge Posner refers to himself as a "professor": zero.
Number of times Judge Posner refers to himself as "professor" in his biography page, as linked from that home page: three. Number of those references which were to the period before his 1981 appointment to the Seventh Circuit, i.e., the period when he actually was a professor: three. "Posner entered law teaching in 1968 at Stanford as an associate professor, and became professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School in 1969, where he remained (later as Lee and Brena Freeman Professor of Law) until his appointment to the Seventh Circuit in 1981." Scrupulously precise. Self-description of his current connection with the University of Chicago Law School on this page: "He continues to teach part time at the University of Chicago Law School, where he is Senior Lecturer, and to write academic articles and books." Again, scrupulously precise.
Judge Posner's MS Word .doc file containing his C.V. follows precisely the same precise usage.
I think it's likely that Judge Posner has already forgotten more constitutional law than Barack Obama has ever known. He was a superstar as a practicing lawyer, then as an academic, and then as a circuit judge. He doesn't need to embellish, and he's honest. So he doesn't.
Contesting that he was a "professor" at this point is like saying that a "corrections officer" is lying if he describes himself as a "prison guard."
On a side note I found Bill Dyer's comparison to a hospital and the title of "doctor" vs. "nurse" amusing. Both of those terms are thrown around in hospitals all the time, even when not technically correct (and hospitals are really quite title-conscious, although clearly nothing compared to Mr. Dryer). Doctor could mean anything from a department chief to a medical student or PA that doesn't even hold an M.D., and "nurse" anything from a nurse’s assistant with basically no relevant training to a nurse practitioner who has as much training as a PA.
This actually strikes me as a counter to Mr. Dryer’s position, as it shows the difference between a formal title such as “Professor of Law,” or “Attending Physician” and descriptive occupational terms such as “professor” or “doctor.”
But I regularly describe myself simply as a "public defender" except in those narrow circumstances where the distinction really makes a difference (generally, formal pleadings). And it pretty much never makes a difference when I'm talking to the public.
Likewise, most members of the public would call someone who teaches at a law school a "professor." When speaking to a general audience, it's perfectly OK to use terms the way they are generally understood.
Dyer, sometimes you make some interesting points. But all too often, you seem to lack the ability to see ill motives in people you agree with and good motives in people you disagree with.
You just don't seem to get what others are saying. A "Senior Lecturer in Law" is also a "law professor." Just like an "Adjunct Professor of English" is also an "English professor." Academics do not obsess over this as much as you seem to think.
My official title is "Assistant Professor of (Foo)." When people ask me what I do for a living, I say "I am a (Foo) professor." It is not imprecise in any way whatsoever, nor is it an embellishment.
Suppose Obama is sitting around discussing with his staff and his legal advisors the prospective Obama Administration's potential nominees to the Supreme Court — the subject of Prof. Kerr's original post (which I liked; I think he'd go for Sunstein, btw). He says, as a throw-away line in a discussion of other people's qualifications, "John Doe didn't really have all that great a reputation with us law professors when I was back at Chicago." Okay, everyone there is already committed to vote for Obama. He's not introducing himself or pumping his own credentials, he's just making an off-hand reference to them as a tangential reference during a discussion of another serious subject. I wouldn't have a problem with that.
But presidential campaigns are long, painful job auditions. In describing objective facts about themselves, candidates ought to be held to a high standard of accuracy.
And how exactly does this win him any votes? Are they held in high esteem -- "That's what we need; one of them there law perfessor's to help get the country back on track!"
lol. Nope not outside some circles... Real life has too much undisappearable reality for the law proffie types to work their success magic. lol
While that course might have been for three credit hours, couldn't it also have been, as some of their seminar courses (probably for second and third-year students) for only one or two credit hours? Does Chicago adhere to the tradition whereby "credit hours" generally correspond to "in-class hours per week"?
This article, which is generally quite flattering to Obama, says: "While a state senator, Obama held classes early on Monday and late on Friday during legislative sessions, running right through the school's popular Friday evening wine-and-cheese hour." Those sound likely to be seminar classes to me, rather than core curriculum (e.g., first-year required courses in con law or other subjects).
If he was teaching seminar courses only one or two hours per week (and at off-peak hours), would you still stick to your description of him as having taught a "full teaching load" — for that's a term that suggests full-time employment to me, or what would at least be full-time employment (and probably some overtime!) if combined with research and publishing expectations (which Obama never undertook).
Yes, in fact. When I applied for a job outside academia in a desirable location I did indeed say in my application that I was a "(Foo) professor." That is a fully accurate way of describing my current profession (not my formal job title).
And as someone who has served on multiple hiring committees interviewing candidates it is not all that unusual for people who had been a lecturer or adjunct at, say, Big State U. to say in response to an interview question, "When I was a professor at Big State U. in 2004,..."
I'm not going to ask if you were offered the job outside academia that you applied for because I really don't want to drop into ad hominem attacks. (I hope you were at least offered it; I'm sure that (Foo) would have missed you, though. Is your "Foo" reference from these folks, who do seem to be big on titles, or perhaps the "Levin Thumps" books, which my daughter adores, and one of which is soon to be a major motion picture?) May I presume from your carefully worded response, though, that in your job applications in academia, you have indeed given your then-current actual job title, and your past actual job titles, rather than approximations or paraphrases thereof? If so, I applaud you for being, in my entirely subjective judgment, more ethical and honest than the Democratic presidential nominee. If not, well, then, you would in that respect be his equal, I suppose, which you may not consider to be an aspersion at all!
Of course, this press release would seem a little puzzling if released prior to anyone asking about this meaningless issue.
Lecturer is not used as a title the same way professor is, so the only options are to say Dr. or Mr. to be technically correct or to just use professor as a catch all.
By the way this same discussion comes up in "For whom the bell tolls" regarding the main character. With regard to that, Obama can't be professor because he doesn't have a beard.
GW does have one non-fulltime, non-tenure track prof who has an office at GW and teaches a full course load, Stephanie Ridder. I refer to her as a professor at the law school, and if she ran for political office I would certainly support a resolution saying she could use that label, too.Yes.I have never heard of such a policy. I don't know if Presidents of the Harvard law review usually did or did not write them, or what the policy was, if any. The only such policy that I am aware of was held by the Texas Law Review in the late 1970s, and I only know of it from your blog posts about your experience with such a policy. (Of course, other journals may have such a policy; I just don't know and haven't heard of it.)
As for the general question of status-consciousness, the difficulty is that you are mixing up different circumstances in which people are status conscious or not. If a current law review editor gives me a formal academic resume, I would expect the resume to list his formal position on the law review -- what kind of editor, etc. On the other hand, if I'm at a party and I meet a former law review editor, I would think he's from outer space if he mentions his formal position ("Hey, man, were you on the law review back in law school?" "Yes, I was the Associate Deputy Book Editor." "Um, ah, okay.")
In re Who was the last professor to become President. Woodrow Wilson?, Bill Clinton taught classes at the University of Arkansas Law School before becoming governor, but I have no i