Legal Commentary

Calling Obama a Professor is ?a Thinly Veiled Attack on Obama?s Race?

By Eugene Volokh

From Inside Higher Ed:

[Prof. Charles J.] Ogletree, founding and executive director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, says he sees the ?professor? label as a thinly veiled attack on Obama?s race. Calling Obama ?the professor? walks dangerously close to labeling him ?uppity,? a term with racial overtones that has surfaced in the political arena before, Ogletree said....

?The idea is that he?s not one of us,? Ogletree says of the professor label. ?He has these ideas that are left wing, that are socialist, that he?s palling around with terrorists ? those were buzzwords, but the reality was they were looking at this president as an African American who was out of place.?

Thomas L. Haskell, a professor emeritus of history at Rice University, agrees that racial bias may be implicit in the attack on Obama?s professorial past.

?For me and a lot of other academic types, we identify with Obama precisely because he is an intellectual,? Haskell says. ?But what does that mean to John Q. Public? I don?t know. John Q. Public may be frightened of these people, especially because this particular intellectual is a black.?

Professor = uppity = black. Left wing, Socialist, palling around with terrorists = out-of-place black. Intellectual = frightening = especially frightening when black. True, most professors, intellectuals, and left wing Socialists are actually not black, nor are those categories seen as stereotypically black. But you say something bad about President Obama, of course that must mean you?re attacking his race. Because, you know, it?s not like conservatives have ever been known for criticizing white liberals. Why else would they pick on a liberal politician if not because of his race?

Thanks to InstaPundit for the pointer.

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on February 10, 2010 (boomark / email).