Obama kept Law Review balanced

[Hope And Change]

Obama kept Law Review balanced


By JEFFREY RESSNER & BEN SMITH | 6/23/08 4:38 AM EST



Barack Obama's election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review in 1990 gave him his first moment of national fame, a powerful intellectual credential and a sweet book deal. It was also his first electoral victory, won in part by convincing the conservative minority of law students that he would treat them fairly.

While Obama's title and his election have become well-known parts of his personal story, the substance of his actual work on the Review, where he spent at least 50 hours a week, has received little attention.

Obama may have had it right back when he was running the journal, and reportedly ended minor disputes with the words, "Just remember, folks, nobody reads it."

The eight dense volumes produced during his time in charge there — 2,083 pages in all — show the Review to have been a decidedly liberal institution, albeit one in transition as its focus on race and gender was contested by both liberals and conservatives. Under his tenure, the Review published calls to expand the powers of women, African-Americans and the elderly to sue for discrimination.

But Obama, who this March referred to "identity politics" as "an enormous distraction," was not so easily pinned down. He published a searing attack on affirmative action by a former Reagan Administration official. And when, in an unusual move, he selected a young woman from a non-Ivy League law school to fill one of the Review’s most prestigious slots, she produced an essay focused on individual responsibilities as much as on liberties, which criticized both conservative judges and feminist scholars.

"I was very surprised and honored to receive the invitation, of course, as I was teaching at Maryland Law School at the time, and the Forward typically is extended to more established scholars at ‘top’ law schools," wrote Robin West, now a professor and associate dean at Georgetown Law Center, in an e-mail to Politico. While other articles are selected by the Review's editors as a group, the Forward is solicited by a smaller band led by the Review president.

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