Academic

Does Professor Obama = President Obama?

By Adam Benforado

In case you missed it, Jodi Kantor had an article in the New York Times over the weekend, in which she interviewed former colleagues and students of President Barack Obama in order to gain insight into his potential Supreme Court nominations.  According to Kantor, those who knew Obama as a professor ?have a fairly strong sense of the kind of justice he will favor: not a larger-than-life liberal to counter the conservative pyrotechnics of Justice Antonin Scalia but a careful pragmatist with a limited view of the role of courts.? 

Perhaps that assessment is right, but I think we should be cautious in predicting Obama?s judicial nomination strategy based on his exchanges as a professor. 

Such extrapolation raises two questions.                                        

First, how perceptive are students at sizing up their professors?  Students certainly spend a lot of time trying to figure out what makes their professors tick, in hopes of gaining an edge on exams and papers, but also out of pure curiosity.  However, this doesn?t necessarily mean they are very good at it.  I?ve had students absolutely certain that I was liberal, conservative, gay, straight, widowed, Christian, Jewish, and the owner of an Aston Martin (I wish), among other things.  Maybe, Obama?s students were uniquely endowed, but I have my doubts.

Second, are people consistent across situations?  As I have written about in work with the Project on Law and Mind Sciences, there is much social science evidence to suggest that they often are not. 

Being President of the United States presents a completely different array of pressures, constraints, responsibilities, expectations, and freedoms than being a professor at the University of Chicago.  Obama will no doubt draw upon his experiences leading ?students through landmark cases from Plessy v. Ferguson to Bush v. Gore? and ?editing articles by eminent legal scholars on the court?s decisions,? but it seems imprudent to presume that we can read the tea leaves of these interactions to forecast whether it will be Sonia or Elena who gets the first robe.

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on May 05, 2009 (boomark / email).