Rising Star

by David J. Garrow

  22. “Organizing in the 1990s: Excerpts from a Roundtable Discussion,” in Peg Knoepfle, ed., After Alinsky: Community Organizing in Illinois (Illinois Issues, 1990), pp. 123–52, esp. pp. 133–35, 143, 148–51; John B. Judis, “Creation Myth,” TNR, 10 September 2008, pp. 18ff.; Ben Joravsky, “When the Next Derrick Rose Is Right Under Your Nose,” CR, 15 January 2009; DJG interviews with Jean Rudd and Ken Rolling. See also William E. Schmidt, “Chicago Nears Vote on Choice for Mayor as Race Flares,” NYT, 27 February 1989, Dirk Johnson, “Daley Wins Primary in Chicago,” NYT, 1 March 1989, and Johnson, “Daley Wins as Mayor of Chicago, Ending Six Years of Black Control,” NYT, 5 April 1989.

  23. Richard H. Stewart, “Organizing Is His Vocation,” BG, 8 August 1988, p. 19 (Finfer); Obama University of Chicago Law School Faculty Web Page, 2001, web.archive.org; HLS Adviser #8, 12 October 1989, p. 9 (Kozinski speaking on 16 October); Peter M. Cicchino, “An Activist at Harvard Law School,” American University Law Review 50 (2001): 551–65; Glen Johnson (AP), “At Harvard Law School, Obama Foreshadowed Presidential Appeal,” 26 January 2007; Greg Dingens on “Obama Presidential Announcement Reaction,” C-SPAN, 10 February 2007; Butts in “A Rusty Toyota, a Mean Jump Shot,” WP, 11 February 2007, p. B3; Harper in Jodi Kantor, “One Place Where Obama Goes Elbow to Elbow,” NYT, 1 June 2007, p. A1; Finfer in Irene Sege, “Community Organizers Fault Comments at GOP Gathering,” BG, 6 September 2008, p. A9; Harper in Melanie Eversley, “Best Supporting Actor,” The Root, 1 October 2008; Finfer, “The Obama Experience,” Social Policy, Fall 2008, pp. 11–12; Kenny Smith in Jim Morrill, “Remembering Obama,” Charlotte Observer, 13 January 2009; Eric Fingerhut, “Be It Bush or Obama, White House Door Open for O.U.’s Diament,” JTA.org, 27 January 2009; Finfer in Sara Rimer, “Community Organizing Never Looked So Good,” NYT, 12 April 2009; Abramsky, Inside Obama’s Brain (Portfolio, 2010), p. 53; A. J. Buckley, “Before the Scene: Hill Harper,” Scene Louisiana Magazine, December 2012–January 2013, pp. 18–19; DJG interviews with Rob Fisher, Cassandra Butts, Laura Jehl, Christine Lee, Karla Martin, Morris Ratner, James Esseks, Keith Boykin, Ken Mack, Gordon Whitman, Lew Finfer, Tom Krause, Kenny Smith, Hill Harper, Tom Lininger, Ursula Dudley Oglesby, Tynia Richards, David Hill, Nathan Diament, Greg Dingens, and Tom Wathen. See also Sondra Hemeryck, Cassandra Butts, Laura Jehl, et al., “Reconstruction, Deconstruction and Legislative Response: The 1988 Supreme Court Term and the Civil Rights Act of 1990,” Harvard Civil Rights–Civil Liberties Law Review 25 (Summer 1990): 475–590. On Walpole, see Kelsey Kauffman, Prison Officers and Their World (Harvard University Press, 1988), esp. pp. 23–37.

  24. Laurence H. Tribe, “The Curvative of Constitutional Space: What Lawyers Can Learn From Modern Physics,” HLR 103 (November 1989): 1–39; Harvard Law School 1989–90 Catalog, p. 105; Rob Fisher to Laurence Tribe, 1 November 1989, RFP; Peter M. Yu to Erwin N. Griswold, 9 June and 9 November 1989, Griswold to Yu, 13 and 29 November 1989, Griswold Papers [EGP] Box 133 Fld. 2; Patrick Philbin et al., to The Body, “The Frug Piece,” 15 January 1992, Trent Norris Papers [TNP]; Christine Lee in Debra McCown, “So What Was President Obama Like in College?,” Bristol Herald Courier, 27 January 2009; Cass R. Sunstein, “Interpreting Statutes in the Regulatory State,” HLR 103 (December 1989): 405–509; [Thomas J. Perrelli], “Search and Seizure—Suspicionless Drug Testing—Seventh Circuit Upholds Drug Testing of Student Athletes in the Public Schools,” HLR 103 (December 1989): 591–97; Yu to Griswold, 5 December 1989, and Griswold to Yu, 21 December 1989, EGP Box 133 Fld. 2; Ann Dunham to Alice Dewey, 3 November 1989, Dunham résumé, n.d. (ca. 1993), Dunham Papers; Julia Suryakusuma, “Obama for President . . . of Indonesia,” Jakarta Post, 29 November 2006, and “Barack Obama: Mum’s the Word,” Jakarta Post, 4 November 2008; Paula Bender, “Legacy of the President’s Mother,” Malamalama: The Magazine of the University of Hawaii, January 2009; Dunham, Surviving Against the Odds (Duke University Press, 2009), p. 301; Judith Kampfner, “Dreams from My Mother,” BBC Radio, 16 September 2009; Suryakusuma, “‘Ibu’ Ann’s Legacy to Indonesia,” Jakarta Post, 21 March 2010; Janny Scott, A Singular Woman (Riverhead, 2011), pp. 265–66, 285–91; Stallman v. Youngquist, 125 Ill. 2d 267, 531 N.E. 3d 355 (21 November 1988); [Barack Obama], “Tort Law—Prenatal Injuries—Supreme Court of Illinois Refuses to Recognize Cause of Action Brought by Fetus Against Its Mother for Unintentional Infliction of Prenatal Injuries,” HLR 103 (January 1990): 823–28; DJG interviews with Rob Fisher, Larry Tribe, Mike Dorf, Barbara Schneider, Pauline Wan, Andy Schapiro, Chad Oldfather, Brad Berenson, Susan Freiwald, Kevin Downey, Frank Cooper, Gordon Whitman, Carl Coleman, Radhika Rao, Tracy Higgins, Jennifer Borum Bechet, John Parry, Christine Lee, and Tom Krause. The Harvard Law Review’s own bound, anonymously annotated master copy of Volume 103, housed in the president’s office, attests to Obama’s authorship of the January 1990 case note and lists “P. editors C. Lee, B. Obama, J. Parry, G. Whitman, S. Freiwald” on the first page of the March 1990 Cook article. DJG interview with then-HLR president Mitchell Reich, 18 April 2011.

  25. Harvard Law School 1989–90 Catalog, esp. pp. 4–5; HLS Adviser #14, 30 November 1989, p. 5; Harvard Law School Annual Examinations in Law 1989–90, pp. 78–81, 17–20, 35–38; Cassandra Butts’s interview with Jim Gilmore; DJG interviews with Elvin Charity, Jan-Michele Lemon Kearney, Radhika Rao, Ken Mack, Chris Edley, Larry Tribe, and Rob Fisher.

  26. Dunham to Suryakusuma in Margaret Conley, “Obama’s Early Days in Jakarta,” ABCNews.com, 25 September 2008, on 20/20, ABC, 3 October 2008, and in Scott, A Singular Woman, pp. 296–97; Obama, TAOH, p. 327; Sheila Miyoshi Jager, “Narrating the Nation: Students, Romance and the Politics of Resistance in South Korea,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, December 1994, pp. vii–viii; Sheila Jager e-mails to DJG.

  27. Harvard Law School 1989–90 Catalog, pp. 4–5, 114; Harvard Law School Schedule of Courses 1989–90, HLSA; Harvard Law School Annual Examinations in Law 1989–90, pp. 336–50; “Memorandum to Barak [sic] Obama and Rob Fisher From Larry Tribe Re Your February 1 Memo,” 2 February 1990, RFP; Paul Tarr and John Thornton, “Obama Election Lauded Coast to Coast,” HLRec, 9 February 1990, pp. 1, 12; Linda Matchan, “A Law Review Breakthrough,” BG, 15 February 1990, p. 29; Tammerlin Drummond, “Barack Obama’s Law,” LAT, 12 March 1990, pp. E1–E2; Elise O’Shaughnessy, “Harvard Law Reviewed,” Vanity Fair, June 1990, p. 106; Granfield, “Making It by Faking It,” p. 342; Mack in “Barack Obama Before He Was a Rising Political Star,” Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, Autumn 2004, pp. 99–101; Richard A. Serrano and David G. Savage, “Obama’s Harvard Law School Days Marked by Bridge-Building,” LAT, 27 January 2007; Levenson and Saltzman, “At Harvard Law, a Unifying Voice,” BG, 28 January 2007, p. A1; Cassandra Butts on Tell Me More, NPR, 22 February 2007; Mack in John Heilemann, “When They Were Young,” New York Magazine, 22 October 2007; Crystal Nix Hines, “Testimonial,” undated 2008 video, on BarackObama.com; Goldberg in Ed Pilkington, “Obama Dreams Big, Achieves Bigger,” Guardian, 8 January 2008; Ken Mack, “Even at Harvard, Obama Had a Knack for Bonding with Diverse People,” Harrisburg Patriot-News, 17 February 2008; Marian Robinson in Richard Wolffe, “Barack’s Rock,” Newsweek, 25 February 2008, and in Melinda Henneberger, “Michelle Obama Interview,” Reader’s Digest, October 2008, pp. 196–203; Michael Cohen in David Nather, “Obama’s Quick Rise on a Non-Traditional Career Path,” CQ Weekly, 21 August 2008; Ken Mack on “The Choice 2008,” Frontline, PBS, 14 October 2008; Jodi Kantor, “Barack Obama, Forever Sizing Up,” NYT, 26 October 2008, p. IV-1; Jennifer Borum Bechet in Jonathan Tilove, “Few in Louisiana Have Close Ties to Obama,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, 24 November 2008; Jim Chen in Jack Brammer, “Two Kentuckians Reflect on Their Time with Barack Obama,” Lexington Herald-Leader, 19 January 2009; Stephanie Schorow, “Obama’s Narrative,” Harvard Gazette, 16 November 2011; Fatima Mirza, “HLS Professor Offers Look into President Obama the Student,” HC, 16 November 2011; DJG interviews with Rob Fisher, Gina Torielli, Jennifer Gardner Trulson, Jonathan King, Su
san Freiwald, David Rosenberg, Larry Tribe, Chris Edley, Cassandra Butts, John “Vince” Eagan, Ken Mack, Frank Cooper, Jennifer Borum Bechet, Christine Lee, Tom Krause, Monica Harris, Debbie Brake, Scott Collins, Radhika Rao, Diane Ring, Andy Schapiro, Pauline Wan, Gordon Whitman, Brad Berenson, Marisa Chun, Michael Cohen, Kevin Downey, Michael Guzman, Lourdes Lopez-Isa, David Nahmias, Jackie Scott Corley, Daniel Slifkin, Anne Toker, Michael Weinberger, Brad Wiegmann, Dan Bromberg, Jane Catler Nober, Micki Chen, Jack Chorowsky, Carl Coleman, Barbara Eyman, Tracy Higgins, Mark S. Martins, Patrick O’Brien, Jorge Ramírez, Barbara Schneider, Frank Amanat, Adam Charnes, Julie Cohen, Jennifer Collins, Sarah Eaton Stuart, Julius Genachowski, John Parry, Scott Siff, Tom Perrelli, Lisa Hay, Amy Kett, David Goldberg, Chad Oldfather, Monica Harris, Ryan Stoll, Lars Noah, Nancy Kao, and Barry Perlstein. Jennifer Gardner Trulson believes Barack also took Trial Advocacy Workshop C, “a good one,” alongside her in January 1990 with several instructors, but this is unconfirmed. Based almost entirely on individuals’ own recollections of how they faired, the ten candidates eliminated after the first round were Frank Amanat, Adam Charnes, Jim Chen, Julie Cohen, Jennifer Collins, Sarah Eaton, Ken Mack, John Parry, Scott Siff, and Andrew Schlafly. All told, fifty-three editors who were present on 4 February 1990 have voiced their recollections of that day.

  28. Paul Tarr and John Thornton, “Obama Election Lauded Coast to Coast,” HLRec, 9 February 1990, pp. 1, 12; Jim Morrill, “Remembering Obama,” Charlotte Observer, 13 January 2009; “First Black President of Harvard Law Review Elected,” AP, 5 February 1990, and in USA Today, 6 February 1990, p. 2A, St. Petersburg Times, 6 February 1990, p. A4, WP, 8 February 1990, p. B3, AJC, 9 February 1990, p. A2, and HA, 11 February 1990, p. A32; undated television interview footage in Becoming Barack, [February 1990]; Fox Butterfield, “First Black Elected to Head Harvard’s Law Review,” NYT, 6 February 1990, p. A20; Anthony Flint, “First Black Chosen Head of Harvard Law Journal,” BG, 6 February 1990, p. 17; Philip M. Rubin, “Obama Named New Law Review President,” HC, 6 February 1990; Michael J. Ybarra, “Activist in Chicago Now Heads Harvard Law Review,” CT, 7 February 1990, p. C3; Phil Mayer, “Ex-Islander Gets Prestigious Harvard Post,” HSB, 9 February 1990; Linda Matchan, “A Law Review Breakthrough,” BG, 15 February 1990, p. 29; J. D. Reed, “People,” Time, 19 February 1990, p. 93; John Corr, “From Mean Streets to Hallowed Halls,” Philadephia Inquirer, 27 February 1990, pp. C1, C4; HLS Adviser #27, 8 March 1990, p. 10 (Mikva speaking on 8 March); Laurence H. Tribe, Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes (W.W. Norton, 1990), pp. xv–xvi; Obama in “The First Black President of the Harvard Law Review,” Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, Winter 2000–2001, pp. 22–25; David Wilkins in Lauren A. E. Schuker, “Obama Stars at Convention,” HC, 30 July 2004, in Marie C. Kodama, “Obama Left His Mark on HLS,” HC, 19 January 2007, and in Jon Meacham, “On His Own,” Newsweek, 23 August 2008; Tony Mauro, “Obama’s Road Not Taken,” Legal Times, 13 December 2007; Shelby Steele, A Bound Man (Free Press, 2007), p. 14; McClelland, Young Mr. Obama, p. 79; Michelle in Liza Mundy, Michelle (Simon & Schuster, 2008), pp. 108–9; Mikva in Ryan Lizza, “Making It: How Chicago Shaped Obama,” TNR, 21 July 2008; DJG interviews with Frank Cooper, David Hill, Hill Harper, Nicole Lamb-Hale, Lori-Christina Webb, Susan Higgins, Debbie Brake, Jackie Scott Corley, Sarah Eaton Stuart, Sheryll Cashin, Ab Mikva, Julius Genachowski, Mark Kozlowski, and Larry Tribe, and Tribe’s 2012 interview with Jim Gilmore. A few weeks later, L.A. Law star Blair Underwood visited the law school and had dinner with Barack and huge fan Jennifer Borum at a Chinese restaurant. DJG interviews with Jennifer Borum Bechet and Christine Lee. See also Brian McIver, “In Treatment Star Blair Underwood on Being Barack Obama’s Predecessor,” Daily Record (Glasgow), 14 October 2009. Cashin’s and Mikva’s clear and consistent memories—Barack “never visited our chambers”—suggest that specific details in Claire Cooper, “Jeff Bleich—Finding Common Ground,” San Francisco Bar Journal, Fall 2008, pp. 48–50, and Jess Bravin, “Obama’s New Man Down Under,” WSJ, 22 December 2009, must be discounted. The Record story stated that Obama had made “significant contributions to the final two chapters” of Tribe’s book, which, if accurate, would mean Chapter 9, “In Search of Compromise,” pp. 197–228, which addressed the idea of “common ground,” and Chapter 10, “Beyond the Clash of Absolutes,” pp. 229–42, which addressed “What Our Views of Abortion Can Teach Us About Ourselves,” “Fetal Endangerment: Child Abuse?,” similar to Barack’s January 1990 case comment, and “How Can We See and Talk to One Another.” Tammerlin Drummond, “Barack Obama’s Law,” LAT, 12 March 1990, pp. E1–E2, says, “Obama wrote an insightful research article showing how contrasting views in the abortion debate are a direct result of cultural and sociological differences” for Tribe. Rob Fisher, an anti-abortion Roman Catholic, recalls that “Barack and I discussed abortion quite a bit,” particularly “what a sad thing it is.” Tribe has been unable to locate any abortion-related work Obama did for him. DJG interviews with Rob Fisher, Larry Tribe, Mike Dorf, and Peter Rubin.

  29. George Paul, “Obama Selects Review Editors,” HLRec, 16 February 1990, pp. 1, 11; Perrelli and Berenson in Levenson and Saltzman, “At Harvard Law, a Unifying Voice,” BG, 28 January 2007, p. A1; Berenson in Richard Wolffe and Daren Briscoe, “Across the Divide,” Newsweek, 16 July 2007, pp. 22ff.; Christine Lee on “The Choice 2008,” Frontline, PBS, 14 October 2008; Obama, “Remarks on the Death of Nelson Mandela,” 5 December 2013; DJG interviews with David Goldberg, Lisa Hay, Tom Perrelli, Julie Cohen, Christine Lee, Michael Cohen, Kevin Downey, David Nahmias, Susan Freiwald, Adam Charnes, Jennifer Collins, Brad Berenson, Amy Kett, Radhika Rao, Tom Krause, Bruce Spiva, Jennifer Borum Bechet, Monica Harris, Scott Siff, Michael Weinberger, and John Parry.

  30. HLR 103 (January 1990): 601–828; Peter M. Yu to Erwin M. Griswold, 4 January 1990, EGP Box 133 Fld. 1; Charles Rothfeld, “Minority Critic Stirs Debate on Minority Writing,” NYT, 5 January 1990, p. B6; Griswold to Yu, 12 January 1990, Barbara Schneider to Griswold, 23 January 1990, and Griswold to Schneider, 25 January 1990, EGP Box 133 Fld 1; Katharine T. Bartlett, “Feminist Legal Methods,” HLR 103 (February 1990): 829–889, esp. 829; Kenneth Lasson, “Scholarship Amok: Excesses in the Pursuit of Truth and Tenure,” HLR 103 (February 1990): 926–50, esp. 928, 930; Yu to Griswold, 7 February 1990, and Griswold to Yu, 8 February 1990, EGP Box 133 Fld. 1; Anthony E. Cook, “Beyond Critical Legal Studies: The Reconstructive Theology of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,” HLR 103 (March 1990): 985–1045; Floyd Abrams, “A Worthy Tradition: The Scholar and the First Amendment,” HLR 103 (March 1990): 1162–1173, esp. 1162; Yu to Griswold, 7 March 1990, and Griswold to Yu, 13 March 1990, EGP Box 133 Fld. 1; DJG interviews with Gordon Whitman, Frank Amanat, Adam Charnes, Lisa Hay, John Parry, Scott Siff, and Brad Wiegmann.

  31. Harvard Law School 1989–90 Catalog, esp. pp. 75, 132, 147; Gerald E. Frug, “The Ideology of Bureaucracy in American Law,” HLR 97 (April 1984): 1276–1388; Frug, Local Government Law (West Publishing, 1988); Joan Chalmers Williams, “The City, the Hope of Democracy: The Casebook as Moral Act,” HLR 103 (March 1990): 1174–86, esp. 1183, 1185–86; [Roberto Unger, Readings Packet], Jurisprudence, Harvard Law School, Spring Term 1990, esp. pp. 2 and 468, Radhika Rao Papers; Unger, False Necessity: Anti-Necessitarian Social Theory in the Service of Radical Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 1987); Unger, Passion: An Essay on Personality (Free Press, 1984); Rob Fisher—Discussant: Barack Obama, “Class Presentation, Tribe’s Post-Newtonian Seminar,” 15 February 1990, RFP; Holmes in Towne v. Eisner, 245 U.S. 418, 425 (1918); Laurence H. Tribe and Michael C. Dorf, “Levels of Generality in the Definition of Rights,” University of Chicago Law Review 57 (Fall 1990): 1057–1108, at 1077n83 (citing Rob’s The Logic of Economic Discovery); Tribe and Dorf, On Reading the Constitution (Harvard University Press, 1991), esp. pp. iii, 125, and 132 (again citing Rob’s Logic); Harry N. Scheiber, “What the Framers Didn’t Say,” NYTBR, 17 March 1991; Cassandra Butts in Larissa MacFarquhar, “The Conciliator,” New Y
orker, 7 May 2007, pp. 48ff.; Joel Freid, “It’s California’s Turn to Elect a President Like John Kennedy,” California Progress Report, 28 January 2008; Freid in “Bay Area Residents in D.C. to Witness History,” Oakland Tribune, 18 January 2009, and in Nuts & Boalts, 16 March 2009; Noam Scheiber, “Crimson Tide,” TNR, 4 February 2009; Butts in Remnick, The Bridge, p. 189; DJG interviews with Rob Fisher, Chris Edley, Dan Rabinovitz, Cassandra Butts, David Troutt, Joel Freid, David Smail, Jennifer Gardner Trulson, John Parry, Tynia Richard, Jerry Frug, Roberto Unger, Radhika Rao, Susan Freiwald, Julie Cohen, Steve Ganis, Larry Tribe, Jack Chorowsky, Mike Dorf, Peter Dolotta, Andy Schapiro, and Tom Perrelli.