The Clinton campaign, embarrassed by its own misstatements about Bosnia and Ireland, tried to deflect some of the criticism this week by attacking Obama with a press release and a conference call by trying to cite Obama's own exaggerations.
The very first claim was that Obama had falsely used the "law professor" to describe himself. The Clinton campaign first cites an RNC press release and then a 2004 article from Lynn Sweet, a Chicago Sun-Times columnist who for years has made it her career to try to catch Obama:
Several direct-mail pieces issued for Obama's primary campaign said he was a law professor at the University of Chicago. He is not. He is a senior lecturer (now on leave) at the school. In academia, there is a vast difference between the two titles. Details matter.
Campaign spokesman Paul Singer claimed in a conference call on March 27th:
Sen. Obama has often referred to himself as "a constitutional law professor" out on the campaign trail. He never held any such title. And I think anyone, if you ask anyone in academia the distinction between a professor who has tenure an instructor that does not, you'll find that there is... you'll get quite an emotional response.
Sweet and Singer are splitting hairs and exaggerating distinctions. First of all, it's not true that all professors hold tenure. Assistant, associate, or visiting professors generally have a review period of several years before receiving tenure --- which does not mean for an instant that they would not refer to themselves as a "university professor." A law student, obviously, writing Obama in an email, would not formally address him as Lecturer Obama but as Prof. Obama.
The University of Chicago responded with this statement (via the Politico):
The Law School has received many media requests about Barack Obama, especially about his status as 'Senior Lecturer.'
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.
The Law School even insists that they repeatedly offered Obama a tenure-track position, but that Obama declined to pursue his career in politics. Senior lecturers are often judges or elected officials, whose commitments prevent them from becoming a full-time academic.
And the Law School's list of current senior lecturers includes several distinguished legal minds:
As a "senior lecturer," Obama was in good company: The six other faculty members with the title include the associate dean of the law school and Judge Richard Posner, who is widely considered to be one of the nation's top legal theorists.
Indeed, if you go to the University of Chicago Law School website, you'll find Barack Obama's name still there on the list of "professors."
Larry Lessig, the renowned law professor, who also had a position at the University of Chicago from 1991-1997, and is currently stumping for Obama this weekend at Pennsylvania universities had this to say:
For those not making the trek to Penn State, I hope some will be able to make it to a talk I'll be giving about Barack and why the PA primary is so critical. Barack was a colleague of mine when I taught at the University of Chicago (and yes, Hillary Clinton, he WAS a professor at the University of Chicago). I am grateful for the chance to return to Penn to help support this extraordinary man.
UPDATE: Apologies for not finding chumley's diary from yesterday on the same topic when I did a search. You can read it here:
Along with many other people, I've known for some time that this line of attack on Obama was pathetic. I've worked both as an adjunct and a "visiting professor" at different colleges, and I was always addressed as "Professor," even though it occasionally seemed silly to me. But it would be ridiculous of me to parse my experience for others, always adding the title "Visiting" just to ensure no one thought I was puffing myself up.
And Obama was in a much, much bigger league than me. As the University of Chicago statement makes clear, he was a long-time professor with a full course load, who was actually invited to join in a tenure-track position numerous times.