Why Eugene Volokh is Wrong on My Story Concerning Bogus Claims on Obama Resume

Law professor Eugene Volokh takes issue with my column at the Examiner earlier in the week which exposed some rather bogus claims on Barack Obama's resume.

I was taken aback, to be frank, by the vehemence with which Volokh attempted to discredit my article.  That being said, he is certainly entitled to his opinion, provided it is understood that it is opinion.

So often in politics that which is more appropriately described as opinion is passed off as fact.  I am certainly not above falling into that trap, and I believe that Professor Volokh has done so in this case.

Here are some excerpts from his post at The Volokh Conspiracy, which is linked above, along with my commentary on why I maintain he is wrong.  My responses to his assertions are in bold letters.

[UPDATE: I just received a message from the Content Manager for Right Side News, which had posted the article I cite below, saying that the article has been removed (I’ve updated the link below to point to the Google-cached version). The message explained that, “After reading the article written that addressed the errors in an editorial post on Right Side News, we pulled the article and will not publish that author’s material again. This URL is now inactive ... Just wanted to say thank you, sir ....” Very glad to hear it! I should note, though, that some of the errors below remain present either in places that the original article cited, or in places that now cite the article.]

I never requested that Right Side News publish my article on their site.  I did not mind that they did so, given they provided full credit and a link, but this was not my doing.  The curious part of this is that they took  the article down after it had been up on their site for at least 24 hours, citing 'content concerns.'  Interesting that these concerns did not prevent them from posting the article to begin with.  And why Professor Volokh would be 'very glad to hear' that my work had been deleted from the site is also very curious.  The fact that he disagrees with some of my assertions is one thing, but I believe this response is way over the top.   

[FURTHER UPDATE: The Blogging Professor has also taken down the post that Right Side News originally linked to.]

The Blogging Professor used at least one of the same sources I used for this story.  He issued an explanation and a clarification about that source, not a retraction.  This source has nothing to do with my article itself, although the source is cited in my article, along with several others.

A couple of people e-mailed me this story, which is apparently making the rounds in some conservative circles. I wanted to warn people away from this; it’s a mixture of error, unsupported rumor and speculation, linguistic gamesmanship, and innuendo suggesting some malfeasance in what is actually perfectly normal behavior. It’s wrong to fall for it and to recommend it to others. And it’s also counterproductive: it undermines your credibility for the actual substantive arguments that should be made against the Administration’s policies. (For me, it’s enough that it’s wrong; but I mention the counterproductiveness as an extra incentive.)

I have repeatedly, consistently, relentlessly, and tirelessly engaged in daily critiques of the Obama Administration's policies.  It is WRONG to insinuate that since I reported problems with Obama's background that this somehow shows I have not adequately opposed the Administration on the merits of its policies.  News is news.  And these allegations concerning Obama's background have NOT been given one ounce of consideration in the mainstream media.  Balance is sorely needed.  That is one of my objectives. 

Let’s look at some items:

According to a special report issued by ‘the Blogging Professor,’ the Chicago Law School faculty hated Obama. The report states that Obama was unqualified, that he was never a ‘constitutional professor and scholar,’ and that he never served as editor of the Harvard Law Review while a student at the school.

1. President Obama’s serving as an editor of the Harvard Law Review is amply documented in publications — including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe — from the early 1990s, including when Obama was still a student. Nor would it have been an easy hoax to pull off then, since the board contained many dozens of people, including many conservatives, all of whom could have blown the whistle had the allegation been false.
Just to satisfy the super-skeptical, I personally confirmed this with Paul Clement, who was a year behind Obama (and was therefore on the board with Obama the year that Obama was the Law Review’s President), who was Solicitor General of the United States from 2005 to 2008, who is a very solid conservative, and whom I know from when we were clerking. And you can also see Obama’s name of the board member listings at, for instance, p. 128 of volume 104 of the Harvard Law Review (though, in keeping with Harvard Law Review practice, that listing doesn’t include the titles of the various members).

Obama's title was 'President of the Harvard Law Review' and not 'Editor.'  What did Obama publish in the Review as Editor? An Editor is required to publish.

2. The “special report issued by ‘the Blogging Professor,’” which supposedly shows that “the Chicago Law School faculty hated Obama,” is actually a quote of a blog post based on an interview with “the highest tenured faculty member at Chicago Law.” Who that is, I don’t know; the source was anonymous, and it’s not clear to me what “the highest tenured faculty member” even means. But in any event, the uncorroborated views of one anonymous source about the supposed attitudes of his colleagues do not make for particularly persuasive proof.

Anonymous sources are regularly used by journalists.  And this is 'wrong' how?  Anonymous sources brought down the Nixon Administration.  We never discovered who 'Deep Throat' was until just recently, although the Watergate Scandal occurred in 1972.

3. The quotation marks around “constitutional professor and scholar” — in an article about supposed “bogus claims on [the] Obama resume” — seem to suggest that the article is quoting some claim of Obama’s or the Administration’s that he was indeed a “constitutional professor and scholar.” My quick searches revealed that Obama has indeed been described at times as a constitutional scholar by others, in contexts where “scholar” seems to just mean “one who has profound knowledge of [the Constitution]” and not “someone who has written scholarship on the subject.” If you want to point out that Obama isn’t a scholar in the sense of having written scholarship on the matter, or that you think his knowledge of the Constitution is weak (as opposed to that you think his views on the Constitution are wrong, a very separate matter), that’s fine. But absent some claim on his or his authorized agents’ part that he’s a constitutional scholar in the “written scholarship” sense, don’t include the claim that he is a “constitutional professor and scholar” as a “bogus claim[] on [the] Obama resume.”

According to a news story in the Chicago Sun-Times in 2008, the Chicago Law School confirmed that Barack Obama DID NOT hold the title of law professor at the school.  This is from a statement made by the law school itself, no matter what redactions they may have made since 2008.

As to the claim that it’s somehow bogus for Obama or his staff to claim that he’s a “professor,” because his title was actually “Senior Lecturer,” Orin addressed this well in July, but the short answer is that “professor” is a commonly used way of referring to university and graduate school teachers, regardless of their titles. If at some point he wrote on his actual resume, or similar document, that he held the title “Professor of Law,” that would be wrong. But that he is casually referred to as “professor,” or refers to himself this way, is quite normal.

Actually these terms do matter and they mean something.  Professor Volokh would have us believe that the terms 'instructor' or 'adjunct professor' or 'associate professor' or 'professor' are bandied about interchangeably in academic circles.  This was certainly not the case in my educational career, which is significant.  I hold a 90-hour Master's degree, plus several years in post-graduate work in several institutions.  Invariably students were careful to refer to only full professors and associate professor as 'Professor.'  Adjunct Professors were called 'Doctor' if they held that degree, and 'Mister' or 'Ms.' if they did not.  This went for Instructors as well.  This is only right and courteous, given that full Professors and Associates have significantly more education and training than most others on a faculty.  We never wished to insult our Professors by lumping less qualified 'instructors' in with the mix. Titles matter in academia.  And if we are going to 'get it right' as Professor Volokh claims we should do regarding my article, then that should apply to using the correct title when addressing faculty members.

I will agree with Volokh on one thing--this is all the time I wish to spend on this issue.  He had his say, and now I have had mine.