HARVARD LAW SCHOOL

In the fall of 1988, Barack moved to Boston to attend Harvard Law School. He entered the prestigious school as an unknown man with an Afro hairstyle. His trip to Kenya had provided answers to many of his questions about his identity. Attending Harvard, just like his father, felt less complicated, and his reasons for attending seemed clearer. As a 27-year-old first-year law student, he was older than his classmates and, to some degree, more experienced. He had grown up in Hawaii and Indone- sia, had toured Europe, and had visited family in Africa; he had also spent more than two years as a community activist in Chicago, giving him more experiences than many of his fellow classmates, most of whom entered law school right after college graduation. As a result, with the exception of playing pickup basketball games, Barack spent much of his time alone. After his first year, he spent the summer in Chicago as an intern at a law firm where he met his future wife, Michelle Robinson, also a Harvard Law graduate and a practicing attorney. When he returned to Harvard to continue his studies, Barack surprised his classmates by entering the race for president of the Harvard Law Review. This position, coveted by law school students, involved appointing editors, mediating disagreements, and ac- cepting and rejecting articles submitted to the Review. The position could influence careers and was also considered a ticket to a high-powered legal position or an academic career. Barack was known to be one of the most

48 BARACK OBAMA

driven students in his class. When his classmates first encouraged him to run for the presidency of the Review, Barack declined, stating he wanted to return to Chicago for the summer to continue his community organiz- ing. A short time later, he agreed to add his name to the list of 19 candidates. Barack characterized his decision to compete for the position as almost impulsive: “It was probably one of those moments where I said, what the heck. I was an older student, 27. Most of my peers at the law review were a couple of years younger than I was. I thought I could apply some common sense and management skills to the job. I was already in- vesting a lot of time in the law review, and my attitude was: Why not try to run the law review?” 8

At the end of the day-long election process, Barack was one of two fi- nalists for the job. In the end, the conservative faction, with its candidates already defeated, threw their support behind Barack. “Whatever his politics, we felt he would give us a fair shake,” said Bradford Berenson, a former associate White House counsel in the George W. Bush administration. 9

When Barack was announced as the winner of the most coveted position at one of the most prestigious institutions in the United States—the first black student to hold the spot in its 104-year history—he was inundated with interview requests from newspaper and magazine reporters. In the interviews, he was modest in his responses and careful with his answers. In one interview, he said, “The fact that I’ve been elected shows

a lot of progress. It’s encouraging. But it’s important that stories like mine aren’t used to say that everything is O.K. for blacks. You have to remem- ber that for every one of me, there are hundreds or thousands of black

students with at least equal talent who don’t get a chance.” 10 About his goals, Barack said, “I personally am interested in pushing a strong minority perspective. I’m fairly opinionated about this. But as president of the law review, I have a limited role as only first among equals.” He said he would concentrate on making the review a forum for debate and would

bring in new writers and push for livelier, more accessible writing. 11 Soon after his election to the Law Review, Barack was inundated with calls from publicists, publishers, and literary agents. Not long after beginning his post at the Review, Barack signed a contract with a publisher to write his memoir, Dreams from My Father.

For Barack, and likely any student who held the position as president of the Harvard Law Review, being elected was easier than serving. The climate at Harvard at the time was fractious, and there was a need for leadership. Barack found himself having to reject articles submitted by famous Harvard professors and having to get the editors to stop argu- ing and keep working. Bradford Berenson said, “I have worked in the

A T R I P T O K E N YA A N D H A RVA R D L AW S C H O O L 49 Supreme Court and the White House and I never saw politics as bitter as

at Harvard Law Review in the early ’90s. The law school was populated by a bunch of would-be Daniel Websters harnessed to extreme political ideologies.” 12

Barack, a now famous minority student, was part of a campus rife with racial politics. The Law Review was also struggling with the issue of whether affirmative action should be a factor in the selection of editors and whether voice should be given to those who argued that the legal sys- tem was biased against minorities. Barack had difficult choices to make. If he used his position to criticize Harvard, he would anger blacks and liberals. By speaking out, he risked putting himself and the Law Review in the center of debates. He found himself walking a delicate line. For the most part, each side listened to him, and both sides somehow felt Barack was endorsing their side. Both sides could often find justification in what Barack said. When he acknowledged that he had benefited from affirmative action, those who supported affirmative action were happy. Those who opposed affirmative action viewed his presidency as a triumph of meritocracy. In his speeches, he tried to steer clear of contention, stick to safe topics, and listen to others’ opinions. 13

Barack wrote in Dreams from My Father that, while he was in law school, he spent a lot of time in poorly lit libraries reading statutes and cases. He reflected that the study of law can be disappointing and a mat- ter of applying narrow rules and difficult-to-understand procedures to re- ality. He observed that law is memory and a recording of long-running

conversations and of a country that argues with a conscience. 14 Barack found answers in the law books and listening to the lectures and debates in the classrooms and within the law community. However, the answers

he found at law school didn’t always satisfy him. And often they only made him dig deeper to understand and find solutions. He also realized that, as long as the questions are being asked, what binds people together would always prevail.

In 1991, Barack graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. He returned to Chicago to practice civil rights law and teach constitu- tional law at the University of Chicago Law School.

HARVARD LAW SCHOOL