I was FIRST in the class and he was great

aol?

What is AOL?

Meh. He's a second-rate Spann.

He was known as a great professor, a real gem. I didn't take his class as he ran for Senate my 1L year, but I knew people who had taken it and they all told me that it was fantastic. Oh well. I guess I missed out!

Here are two comments from an old thread (http://www.abovethelaw.com/2007/01/sen_hillary_rodham_clinton_the.php) re Obama's work at the U of C:

Obama was a non-tenure-track lecturer in the legal clinic when I was at Chicago, hired right around the time some students were protesting that the faculty had too many white males. I don't recall him teaching constitutional law, though it certainly is within the realm of possibility.

---

I personally had Barack Obama for Con Law at Chicago, so yes he did teach it there; and he was good enough that students showed up at 8:30 in the morning in the dead of winter for him.

Seriously, he still has AOL? I thought he was about "change."

Let's hear from some students who ended up in the bottom half in his Con Law class.

I took plenty of classes I loved that I didn't do great in. It's not all about the grade you get. I suppose it is if you're childish enough to be pissed about a grade five years after the fact.

Is University of Chicago really THAT much better than Hofstra?? Why don't any presidents come to LI! My girlz and I would show Obama a good time, LI style :))

One is tempted to question the wisdom of a candidate who voluntarily braved those frigid mornings only to spend an hour or two in a room with a bunch of nerdy Chicago gunners.

Then again, his wisdom is clearly more sound that the candidate who has remained married to Bill Clinton.

I took his Voting Rights Class at UChicago Law at the crack of dawn. His class was still packed. He was incredibly charasmatic and engaging, but is really, really, far-left liberal in the socialism completely rocks kind of way. I got a 80+ from him though, so no specific dirt-dishing on my part!

I had Obama for three courses, including Con Law III: Equal Protection, etc. My school divides the con law courses into separate subjects so as to better accomodate students' interests and the trimester schedule.

He was an extremely busy guy, working as a senator, a professor, and lawyer. As a result, his courses tended to "book end" the week. Either the courses began very early 8 am or so during the week, or started very late 5pm on Friday. Still, students were attracted to his command of the law, easygoing demeanor, and ability to create a comfortable learning environment for everyone---regardless of race, gender, orientation, and affiliation.

Professor to President Obama? I am all for it.

I took voting rights with him as a 2L. Great class. It was at somewhat odd hours because he was commuting between Springfield and Chicago (early Mondays, late Fridays, as I recall). He was great with questions. Even when he came straight from the car and seemed a little tired, responding to a few questions would get him going. Even bad questions -- in voting rights, you can imagine there were a few -- were generally turned to good use.

Other good points: He had the good sense to give me a mediocre grade on a mediocre paper, and the man looks great in a suit.

I took Con Law III, Equal Protection and Due Process, from Obama. He was an excellent teacher (not my favorite) and was very even-handed in his approach to very sensitive topics. He often took some pleasure in educating the more liberal students who were attracted to his class.

I still remember during our discussion of Casey and other abortion cases, he asked the class whether anyone had ever seen a fetal ultrasound. One of the students had a child. He then asked whether what was on the ultrasound at 20 weeks (pre-viability) was a human life. He didn't really get an answer.

He didn't dwell on the point, but the point was made. Honest, well-intentioned people disagree with each other on abortion. I have no doubt that he is pro-choice, but his perspective and how he conveyed it was, to me, striking.

During my years at the Law School, Obama taught ConLaw III and Voting Rights. Both were early, both were popular. He was a Senior Lecturer, the same position held by Diane Wood, Richard Posner and Frank Easterbrook.

. . . and those who did well in Obama's classes start polishing up their resumes for their DOJ applications . . . .

Yes we can!

The WSJ law blog just ran a similar feature.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/701490,CST-NWS-obamaprof18.article

Ok, indirect story, but I trust the source.

Election Law (others upthread called it "Voting Rights" but source says it's Election law on the transcript) at UofC with Obama. Solid professor with good speaking skills (duh) and fair questions.

Some liberal bias apparent. When conservative students would make a conservative point or argue with him, Obama would rarely directly rebut but instead almost always called on a group of students nicknamed the "liberal elite" to rebut them, typically giving them the final word.

He presented (I won't say "advocated") a wacky idea of padding vote tallies to counter disenfranchised voters. That is, if a reliable demographic indicator showed groups of a predictable political affiliation in a particular geographic area, but voter turnout did not numerically reflect these groups' presence, additional "votes" corresponding to the groups' predictable political affiliation should be added to the final counts in an amount to make up the difference between turnout and census. To be fair, the idea was cast as a disincentive to majority active repression of a minority vote in their geographic region, as opposed to a method to insure perpetual Democrat control of poor, black, urban jurisdictions (or, I suppose, perpetual Republican control of Southern, rural, evangelical areas).

Never had a class with him, if I'm not mistaken the last class he taught at Chicago was an elective during my 1L year. I didn't take it (kicks self), but I heard good things.

I do remember one friend from the class griping about how long it took him to turn in the grades -- this was when his senate campaign was kicking into gear, so it makes sense that his grades wouldn't be as prompt as others. A bunch of students at the law school campaigned for him.

great job lat, lets just steal wsj law blog features. either you intended to steal it, or you don't even keep up on what everyone else is reading. either way, you jumped the shark. how about less surveys too? how lazy can you be?

AND LIKE U OF C, HE'S MR. LAW AND ECONOMICS TOO, HAVING RAISED 32 MILLION DOLLARS IN JANUARY PRIMARILY FROM SMALL DONATIONS.

HAIL TO THE CHIEF!

The law school still has an office with Obamas name on it. Theyre milking the fact that he taught there for all that it is worth.

7:33 -- doesn't it seem as if Obama is sort of being pimped out by U of C in some weird sort of way?

i work at the law school (not a student) and it is sort of obscene how his name is on the building directory, the phone book, and every other place you would find a regular lecturer or prof's name. i am surprised they don't call his name during roll call at staff meetings ...

heck, we even listed "The Audacity of Hope" in our annual mailer to alums on faculty scholarship

and of course we put the new editions of "Dreams of my Father" and "Audacity" in the book case displaying "New Faculty Scholarship."

maybe it is to make up for the fact that there are fleetingly few african americans here.

I didn't take his class while at U of C - but, did bump into him at a restaurant in Hyde Park. He had food in his hand, so we bumped elbows.

His wife, who was a VP at the U of C Hospitals, gave one of the most exciting and hilarious lunch presentations on her career (she was Obama's summer associate mentor when he summered at Sidley), health care in america, and community involvement (her job at the hospital). And then when someone asked her how it was being a senator's wife -- she said, umm, they had a presentation on afternoon teas for the wives, so what do you think?

Great couple...her experience in health care trumps Hilary's any days.

Hes no lawyer- he would get embarrased in court- Harvard and Chicago notwithstanding.

1120 -- Yeah, you're right, he's convinced a sizable chunk of the country that he should lead us, but he wouldn't be able to talk to a jury, or get good testimony from a witness, much less write a compelling motion. I'm sure you'd kick his ass.

please make note that this happened during Mardi Gras, perhaps he was dressed with the Body Paint because he had just gotten off of a float or attended a parade.

still awesome though.

I thought he was an adjunct instructor or some such in the Law School, not a professor. Somone please correct me if I am wrong.

My wife is an actual associate professor at the U of C and, believe me, they care about such distinctions. A LOT.

Ah, yes, there it is on the profile page:

"Senior Lecturer in Law"

NOT a professor.

As was already noted above, as a senior lecturer, he shares the same position as Frank Easterbrook, Diane Wood, and Richard Posner. Mark Filip is also a lecturer. Were they full-time academics, these are not people who would be competing with "actual associate professors" for a job.

Cass Sunstein has made clear on several occasions that the faculty at U of C was very interested in hiring Obama full-time, but he repeatedly demurred because he wanted to devote himself full-time to politics. It is beyond silly to suggest that what Obama really wanted was a full-time job as a professor, but unable to hack it he had to settle for a position in the U.S. Senate. Nice try, though.

Anyone ever find it interesting how even in the world of anonymous internet comments, some people can't get over trying to score trivial social status points?

Frankly, I think there should be mandatory salsa dancing classes at the University of Chicago. It'd lighten you guys up a little.

one two
chachacha!
three four
chachacha!

Were his classes filled with the same feel-good but not-terribly-substantive rhetoric as his speeches?

I mean, it would not be difficult to imagine him teaching the 14th Amendment as being a general charter for full remediation of all inequalities, which is considerably beyond where the Court has gone [insert partly true, but unhelpful anti-conservative comment here].

What was his view on the Constitution generally? Obviously, he's a liberal, but is he more of a Black/Warren/Brennan/Marshall ambitious liberal, or more of a Ginsburg minimalist? Even Cass Sunstein, who supports Obama, has extolled the virtues of judicial minimalism.

Lat, I think you have potential to get some serious mainstream media attn and credibility if you can elicit answers to these questions.

He was most certainly not a fan of socialism or whatever ridiculousness the earlier commenter seems to have been trying to imply.

I took his Con Law III: Equal Protection and Substantive Due Process class, and I honestly don't know his views on the subject matter of that class. I think he may have shared the frustration some of us had with the ambiguity of the recent cases and the change of direction and subterfuge of the modern Supreme Court. He also dealt very well with students with differing viewpoints.

If I had to guess, I would say that his views were along the lines of Cass Sunstein's, mainstream judicial minimalist.

I took two elective constitutional law courses from Obama around 1996 or '97. What I recall most (perhaps tellingly) are not his substantive views on the law but his personal qualities. It was obvious that here was a person who was decent, thoughtful, open to a wide range of views, and comfortable in his own skin. He knew the material well enough and led the discussion ably, but didn't seem particularly cut out for a career in academia. At the time, he was either running for, or had just been elected to, the state Senate, and it was clear that politics was closer to his heart than the classroom. My guess is that his substantive view of constitutional law is not too far from that of Stevens or Breyer -- he has a concern with social justice tempered by a lawyer's incrementalism. I suspect that, like most community organizers, he has a healthy skepticism about using the courts to achieve major social change. My overall impression of him was, and is, extremely positive, and I support him wholeheartedly in his current campaign.

His classes were way, way too early for me or anyone else I cared to regularly talk to. But I remember that my conservative friends sneered when I asked whether it was worth taking his Con Law class. So, as far as I can remember, I guess he had a reputation among some students as being one far-Left dude. But, honestly, I have no idea how they would know this. It's not like the Edmund Burke Society types were packing into Obama's class at 7:30 am.

Law school was the last shot I was ever going to have to get some serious sleep. I wasn't about to pass that up for one lousy class taught by a future president.

"I suspect that, like most community organizers, he has a healthy skepticism about using the courts to achieve major social change."

I'm not an expert on community organizing. But isn't this *exactly* what community organizers would want, since they often seem (1) to be motivated by the failure of their legislators to adequately address their problems, and (2) to be very liberal, and not really big believers in separation of powers or other abstract concepts. I'm not saying they *oppose* those concepts, I'm just saying I can't imagine them saying, "gee, we think X is a really great idea, but it's outside the proper province of the judiciary to impose it," because modern liberals (community organizers or not) for the most part do not think that way, dismissing it as formalistic or outdated.

Of course, if community organizing is a vehicle for mobilizing people, maybe it's better if the change comes through the people who are usually a direct target of the organizing: politicians. But you can organize a march to the courthouse just as easily. If you have no principled preference for one mode of lawmaking over the other (judges vs. legislators), why not promote greater judicial activism?

In sum, doesn't Obama's community organizer background make him significantly more likely to appoint fellow activists (not crazy people, but unabashed activists like Brennan and Marshall) to the Court? I should add that I don't think the answer to this question turns on whether one thinks that is a good idea, or on whether community organizing is good or bad.

If you didn't take his class, why are you randomly speculating here?

Trying to divine Obama's political / judicial nominee views from how he appeared as a professor is pretty silly.

He was a con law professor, people! His community activism aside, do you really think his views on the role of the judiciary are not going to come up? McCain will want to bring it up in order to score points with the conservatives with whom he needs to curry favor. I think this thread is basically dead, but the issue will rear its head again once a nominee has been chosen.

5:16, 8:59 - More often than not, ATL gets to the story first, then the WSJ Law Blog steals it (without credit; at least Lat links to the WSJ when he picks up their stuff).

Here are stories that ATL beat the WSJ to in the past day or so:

-- Larry Lessig possibly running for Congress

-- Sheila Birnbaum email screw-up

-- $50 million laptop lawsuit

So why don't you go over there and post in the comments that ATL beat them to these stories.

2:57, to be fair, xoxo consistently breaks stories before both WSJ and ATL.

wgwag forever!

Undisputably best coverage of this at www.stop-obama.org