Wonkette
So we got this email (addressed to Andrew Sullivan) from a guy who claims to be “a former student of Obama,” and he shares exciting details of the Obama Classroom from a dozen years ago. Do you want to read this? There are parts about how well dressed Professor Obama was, compared to the usual Law School slobs. And this “former student” account was supposedly written by an “Adam B,” yet a “Martin Rosenberg” sent the gmail! So much intrigue! (UPDATE: All figured out, as Adam B. writes us to say he posted this on Daily Kos in 2007! Okay, then, let’s read it!
from: Martin Rosenberg
to: andrew@theatlantic.com
date: Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 12:20 AM
subject: From a Former Student of Obama…It was 1996, and there I was, in a seminar room with maybe fifteen students, not knowing that I was learning from the man who might be the next President of the United States.
To understand Barack Obama as a professor at The University of Chicago Law School (”on leave of absence”), you first need to understand a few things about law school in general, and UChicago in particular:
1. You don’t actually learn the law in law school, at least not at a school like Chicago. Law school is for training you to think through arguments like a lawyer would, and to give you a lay of the land in various fundamental legal areas. Put another way: after spending two quarters studying Contracts with Richard Epstein, I had no idea how to actually draft a contract.
2. There is no “lecturing” in a law school, and anyone deriding Prof. Obama for his “senior lecturer” title is a fool. Law school classes are participatory and interactive, whether through the formal Socratic method or through more informal conversation.
3. Compared to its peer institutions, Chicago is smaller than all of them except Yale. Only about 180 students in each entering class, compared with more than triple that at Harvard. Small faculty too, which means that it really is a small community huddled in a building designed by the same guy who did the Gateway Arch for a long, cold winter. You get to know each other – the faculty’s offices are in the library where we spent much of our time, and you see people everywhere, including the weekly Wine Mess, an informal cocktail hour (and occasional upside-down margarita shot contest site) that forms the bridge between the school week and the brief respite before you start studying again the next morning.
4. Compared to its peer institutions, Chicago is more conservative than all of them, both in terms of faculty and student body. But it doesn’t lead to a divided or divisive experience – indeed, you live with and hang out with your ideological opponents, and they are never your “enemies”. Through debate, you learn to sharpen your own arguments, and the friendships really do last. So, yes, my friends do include former Clarence Thomas clerks, Senate Republican aides and the next generation of young conservative professors. But that’s okay.
So: after the first year of law school, which is all core curriculum and mandatory (save one elective), Chicago has no requirements other than that you take legal ethics at some point, and that you do at least two “substantial pieces of writing” through seminar courses or journal works. If you want to graduate without studying Constitutional Law, Tax or Corporations, you can do that. Want to avoid any contact with International Law, or Intellectual Property? I did.
Spring quarter of my second year, I took Voting Rights and Election Law as a seminar with Professor Obama. Now, let’s be clear: in a school with a lot of Somebodies – Richard Posner, Frank Easterbrook, Cass Sunstein and David Currie – he was a relative nobody, and even compared with other younger faculty, it was Larry Lessig and Elena Kagan who had more of the hype. But Obama was teaching a course in a subject I wanted to study – at a point when I realized that law school was too short to be spent in classes that felt obligatory – and that made it an easy decision.
And he was … different. For one thing, better dressed. Sleek sweaters and blazers as opposed to ill-fitting, coffee-stained suits with mismatched ties. But he was also less formal, more relaxed – he never taught the class as though he knew the answers to all the questions he was posing and was just hiding the ball from us until we could find them. Confident, sure, but never cocky.
What’s more, he taught Voting Rights in a different way than others do. He didn’t use a textbook, for starters, but rather had us each purchase an eight-inch high multilith of cases, law review articles and statutes that he had personally compiled. And they weren’t all the “big” cases either – no, our class started by reviewing some early-19th century cases about the denial of the franchise, so that as the course moved forward we saw “voting rights” not as some static thing to be analyzed, but a constantly- and still-evolving process to be affected. Over the course of a few months, we studied changes in the franchise, changes in the rights of political parties, campaign finance law and redistricting, among other topics. We learned the law, but we also learned it on the level of real-world impact: based on a whites-only party primary, how many people would be denied a voice? What kind of policies would result from such a legislature?
[Mind you, he was running for the State Senate at the same time. Honestly, I had no idea. Law school is something of a cocoon, and he never brought his outside life into the classroom.]
Much in the Chicago tradition, he wanted all voices to be heard in the classroom, and when there a viewpoint that wasn’t being expressed or students were too complacent in their liberal views, he’d push the contrary view himself. These classes were conversations.
And the conversations extended outside the classroom. I spent plenty of time in Prof. Obama’s office, talking to him about the paper I was working on. Just the two of us, one on one, with him always provoking me to think deeper, work harder …
… and keep it real. During my senior year of college, I had written a 100 page honors thesis on racial gerrymandering, mostly focused on the original understanding of what “representation” meant, arguing that to properly understand the Federalist Papers and John Stuart Mill meant that representatives had to each filter the views of their constituents, and that you couldn’t have a process in which the legislature decided which groups were guaranteed seats in Congress, and so therefore, the whole process of guaranteeing “majority-minority districts” in contemporary America was wrong.
Prof. Obama taught me to think about it differently. He made me look at this as a real world issue, and not as a theoretical construct. And in that world, unless some voices are physically present, they won’t be heard at all – and in the real world, legislatures are drawing their own maps to accumulate power, largely for incumbents. In other words, don’t just be principled when everyone else is being pragmatic – fight for your principles with a pragmatic approach.
So, yes, I then spent 20+ pages demolishing what I spent a hundred building just two years before. Why? It reminds me of this courtroom scene between Denzel Washington and the trial judge in Philadelphia:
Judge Garrett: In this courtroom, Mr.Miller, justice is blind to matters of race, creed, color, religion, and sexual orientation.
Joe Miller: With all due respect, your honor, we don’t live in this courtroom, do we?
Professor Barack Obama reminded me that whatever my beliefs were, I’d have to find a way to implement them in the real world if I wanted to make change happen. Good lesson. Great professor.
Oh, and I only got a B on the paper.
Adam B.
This is the most boring Penthouse Forum letter of all time.
…why does it start off like one of those letters in “Penthouse”?
He left out the assfucking.
Glancing Through Obama;s 2003 FInal Exam, I noticed Part 2, which involved a question examining a fictional “Color blind America Initiative” in the fictional State of Utopia.
The newly-elected fictional governor of Utopia is “Arnold Whatzanager”.
“Whats-a-nager”?
This Obama guy is obviously a total racist.
(pg 4)
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/2008OBAMA_LAW/conlaw3.obama.2003.fall.pdf
Was he at law school or the Justice League?
How many times did Jeremiah Wright sub for him?
That’s a great nickname for him! Do he and Professor X get together to play tic-tac-toe?
Walnuts could have taught in college! If it had been invented back then.
Too long, didn’t read. Can someone please just link to the sex scene in the professor’s office?
Did the girl students sit up at the front of the glass with their heads resting on hands slowly closing their eyes and then opening to stare intently at Teach?
And when their eyes closed, was the word “Love” written on the right eyelid and “You” written on the left?
Was Hopey… excuse me, “Professor Hopey” doing blow back then?
…did anyone else stop reading after the 3rd paragraph? Geez, all he had to do was tell us how many graduate students he fukked for grades!!!
Snarking aside, reading through these, I couldn’t believe how much time and effort he seemed to be putting into these classes as a lecturer, while running for office. Meeting individually with each seminar group to discuss their work? I couldn’t get a professor to spit in my direction in law school if it meant they would be late for dinner.
As a recovering law student (a lawyer), I can attest to some of the generalities this person lays out (you don’t learn how to practice in law school, although that is changing with clinics and practicum courses), disagree with a few (Chicago is not unique–all law schools let you take whatever you want after you finish the first-year core). I went to UVA more than a few years ago, which was very conservative when I was there, and if what he says is true, would have loved a prof like Obama. Mine were either overtly right-leaning or overtly left-leaning (far fewer of those). It would have been nice to have someone really push intellectual debate.
The comment about his clothes is interesting. My professors were mostly frumpy except notably for my Critical Race Theory professor, who was black and dressed like Kwame Brown is trying to dress, but this prof got it right–French cuffs, fitted suits, and it worked on him.
Well now I know all about what its like to go to law school in Chicago: the teachers dress like slobs, classes are “interactive” (re: buttsecks), and you learn how to hijack some poor Jewish boy’s email account.
God, law schools produce such twats.
AngryBlakGuy: I bet all us geeko lawyers read the whole thing (I did)!
I wonder how many times Professor Hopey told him to shut the fuck up.
Sure he never came to class with coffee stains on his shirt…but did you check his teeth and fingernails for blow?
This is actually written by DailyKos Front-Pager “Adam B” here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/12/20/12119/122/324/424784
My guess is the Martin Rosenberg guy was just forwarding it to someone.
This comment isn’t at all entertaining, sorry.
Botswana Meat Commission FC: Sadly, you are correct. Luckily, some of us cling to our senses of humor like life rafts against the ocean of twatness that is being a lawyer.
“Just the two of us, one on one, with him always provoking me to think deeper, work harder …” I need a cold shower now. And maybe a cigarette.
AngryBlakGuy: That’s what I was thinking…and then the horrible let down. The guy’s got no chops at all.
From this post: “Law school is something of a cocoon.”
From the article on Patti Solis-Doyle: “Here, she is in the protective cocoon of her close Mexican American family.”
LAW SCHOOL IS A CLOSE MEXICAN AMERICAN FAMILY
That’s why I didn’t get in.
He can spend so much time with his students because if the day is ending and he hasn’t finished everything on his schedule (”How could I have forgotten to divert the course of a mighty river?”) he just makes the earth turn backwards until he’s got enough extra time.
“Prof. Obama taught me to think about it differently. He made me look at this as a real world issue, and not as a theoretical construct…and in the real world, legislatures are drawing their own maps to accumulate power, largely for incumbents.”
I finished Ryan Lizza’s New Yorker profile on Obama, which talks about Barry’s tenure in the State Senate (among other things). The bit on redistricting stands out in light of this tip:
“The idea was to create enough Democratic-leaning districts so that the Party could take control of the state legislature. That goal was fine with Obama; his new district offered promising, untapped constituencies for him as he considered his next political move.”
It also reinforces the idea that while Barry has hope, he’s also very pragmatic about how to make it real. When Hillz was running the thought was that Obama was too mushy and not ruthless enough to be President/face the GOP. Obama really is a mixture of progressive goals becoming a reality through some old-fashioned politicking:
“Professor Barack Obama reminded me that whatever my beliefs were, I’d have to find a way to implement them in the real world if I wanted to make change happen.”
HomoPolitico: No, teh buttsex was totally there: “I spent plenty of time in Prof. Obama’s office, talking to him about the paper I was working on. Just the two of us, one on one, with him always provoking me to think deeper, work harder…”
There’s no way the innuendo there was unintentional, is there? I mean, come on.
NoWireHangers: I found that NYorker article pretty interesting, and it confirmed for me that this is not some naif. He is a Chicago pol who also happens to be a decent person. Also interesting that his menotr suggested he start going to Wright’s church because it would be good for him politically and to make connections.
ahem, that would be “mentor”.
Doglessliberal: as if twats are a bad thing?
jesus, such self important drivel…
2goats: well, good point.
as a third year law student, i was required to read the whole thing. and i must say … swoon.
“yes, my friends do include former Clarence Thomas clerks, Senate Republican aides and the next generation of young conservative professors. But that’s okay.”
Um. Sorry. But no. It’s not.
But where’s the part about how he made everyone wear dashikis and pray to Noam Chomsky AND the east and THEN touch his Mandingo to keep warm during the long, cold Chicago winters?
I sense some clever editing and selective memory from this Adam B., Emailer of Muslims Past.
m_supercomputer: Academic U of C pr0n, FTW.
The U of C, incidentally, still proudly flies the Socratic flag. I don’t mean instruction through questions - I mean dating your professors. Even undergrads did this - not en masse, but pretty consistently. The administration’s policy towards such relationships was “Just don’t flaunt it.” The only thing that was insisted on - not by the administration but by the tut-tutting faculy - were relationship in which there was direct conflict of authority and personal life. So you couldn’t screw your prof while he taught you, but as soon as the grades were in, it was buttseks time.
P.S. I approve of the huge binder with cases Barry had them read. My “Science and Religion in American Legal Hitory” profs did the same thing. Per course hour, the most reading I’ve ever done for a class, hand down - the professors always looked apologetic giving assignments. Awesome class.
Man, it is *so* time for me to go back to school. I miss it something wicked.
I’d be willing to bet a large sum of money that ‘Andy B’ went over the 12 page limit on the final.
AxmxZ: UVA Law, too. There was one that ended in marriage while I was there, but there were at least 5 or 6 women in my class dating profs. (interestingly no male students dating profs and no gay students, either, but there was only one out gay prof at UVA Law while I was there, anyway). One prof was notorious for starting with a 3rd year every year so he could break it off when she graduated.
I’m pretty sure the ‘Socratic method’ involves either hemlock or arugula.
Didn’t they study Bombmaking 101 and Uzi Essentials?
gulcer: I’ve been practicing law for about 20 years as a liberal public defender in a conservative small city and I also say…swoon. I did not have any professors like that.
Doglessliberal:
Well… j-schools are almost as bad.
Botswana Meat Commission FC: hey, all the professors look around and see an open field of hot, young, worshipful ass and cannot resist.
Elitist Republican Tard: Also:
“CONSTITUTIONAL LAW III — PROF. Obama — Final Examination ”
Prof.?….I AM CONFUSED…..
“Just the two of us, one on one, with him always provoking me to think deeper, work harder…and keep it real.”
There goes my Barack, always PROMOTING HIS BLACK AGENDA…
Q: How many members of Obama’s con law class does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: None! They’re too busy screwing each other! (And writing lengthy e-mails posted on libtard websites!)
Since when is ConLaw not a required first year class???
Noisette: well, I guess it has been irrelevant during the Bush Administration.
loquaciousmusic:
Q: How many members of Obama’s con law class does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: Once you go Professor Obama, you’ll never want to screw anyone else.
@AxmxZ:
Like Prof. Hopey’s junk could fit in a lightbulb. Psh.
Noisette: Conlaw I is a required first year class (Commerce Clause / Premption / Marbury v. Madison etc.) This looks like Conlaw II or III (Equal Protection / Civil Rights, etc).
Ken Layne,
Thanks a lot! Now I have to go to bed. I fell asleep twice reading that enthralling letter. I’d rather hear something riveting like Sen. Clinton’s harrowing Bosnia trip. Sure, she knew it was a lie, but why in the hell would she want to bore us to death?
I didn’t know until tonight it was possible to kill a codeine, diazepam and NyQuil buzz. (All prescribed of course.) Thank God I never run out. Oh, don’t do drugs and just say “no”.
Sincerely and respectfully,
Mr-Clark
Doglessliberal: Ocean of twatness? Sounds hot. Where do I sign up?