Professor Obama was a listener, students say

It was only three words in his 20-minute speech announcing his candidacy -- "taught constitutional law." But his students and colleagues at the University of Chicago say those words would make Barack Obama a different kind of president.

"It certainly is an advantage that he really knows the Constitution of the United States," said Professor Cass Sunstein. "I don't know if we have had a president that knows as much about the founding document as he does."

The buttoned-up University of Chicago Law School is best-known for producing conservative jurists like Antonin Scalia, who taught there before becoming a U.S. Supreme Court justice.

"The professors generally use the 'Socratic method' in every class," said Andrew Janis, an '05 grad practicing labor law at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in New York. The Socratic method involves teaching by asking questions, frequently catching students off-guard, like Professor Kingsfield in the 1973 movie "The Paper Chase."

But Obama was very different than the average University of Chicago lecturer, say former students the Sun-Times tracked down at random.

"Classes were often just a forum for the professor to express his or her opinion about these issues and for the students to agree with everything the professor says. But his wasn't that kind of class. He is much more interested in hearing what the students have to say," said Thomas Fitzgibbon, an '04 grad working as a litigator at McGuire Woods in Chicago.

"He didn't just cold-call people all the time," Janis said. "He was willing to be engaged. A lot of time with faculty members, you know what point of view they're coming from. He would rarely say, 'This is what I think.' He kind of had a mysterious air to him because you didn't know what his position was on all these issues."

Legal affairs reporters sought out Obama for years before he ran for U.S. Senate or president. CBS News quoted him as "Professor Barack Obama" in a 2000 story on whether African Americans deserve reparations for slavery.

So why didn't Obama play up the law professor -- technically "senior lecturer" -- part of his resume more in his run for U.S. Senate two years ago? Do political strategists consider it a frumpy credential that wouldn't register with voters?

"It's probably not the main qualification people are looking for," admitted Northwestern University law professor Dawn Clark Netsch, a former candidate for Illinois governor. "To suggest anybody is going to be on their feet shouting 'huzzahs' for that -- I don't think so."

"Given the fact that most people are trying to define him before he defines himself, a look at his resume will show he had a variety of experiences," said Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, who teaches law at Georgetown.

Erika Walsh, an '02 grad practicing family law in Chicago, called him "an extraordinary scholar on the law."

"I can't imagine there is somebody out there smarter than he is," she said. "Many of our professors are so brilliant they are eccentric. But Barack Obama has an ability to reach across differences and communicate with people effectively."

Added Janis, "Some professors are just kind of going through the motions with you. He actually seemed to take everyone's point of view seriously. If he could bring that to bear in the international level with foreign dignitaries and heads of state, I think that would put us in good standing with the rest of the world."

apallasch@suntimes.com