Politics
At Harvard, Obama Dived Into Diversity Fight
In this video, not previously available online but licensed by BuzzFeed from a Boston television station, the future president speaks at a 1991 campus protest organized to demand tenure for minority and female law professors.
Source: youtube.com
Posted
It was perhaps Barack Obama's most intense immersion in the charged campus racial politics of the late 1980s and early 1990s: As President of the Harvard Law Review in the spring of his final year there, 1991, he aligned himself with Professor Derrick Bell's dramatic protest for diversity on the faculty of Harvard Law School.
Bell was the first black tenured professor at the school, and a pioneer of "critical race theory," which insisted, controversially, on reading issues of race and power into legal scholarship. His protest that spring was occasioned by Harvard's denial of tenure to a black woman professor, Regina Austin, at a time when only three of the law school's professors were black and only five women. He told Harvard he would take a leave of absence — a kind of academic strike — "until a woman of color is offered and accepted a tenured position on this faculty," and he launched a hunger strike to dramatize his point.
Obama was a major figure on campus, the first black president of the Law Review. Some friends, in a prescient joke, just referred to him as "the first black president." He had a reputation as a conciliatory figure, not a confrontational one like Bell.
""How Obama would react to Derrick Bell's protest was a matter of some interest," New Yorker editor David Remnick wrote in his exploration of Obama and race, The Bridge.
It was a situation in which clear lines had been drawn, and Obama sided with Bell. In a speech before the law school's Harkness Commons — and sounding very much like his future presidential self — he described Bell as "the Rosa Parks of legal education."
Obama's stand provided a major boost to the protests, Keith Boykin, one of their organizers, later recalled.
Barack was always supportive and sympathetic to our campaign for faculty diversity. He spoke about it at one of our rallies. But he was not actively involved in the protest movement. Nor did he need to be. As I said, his presence alone made the case. And even if he agreed with the cause of the movement, he didn't need to be involved in the more radical protests we launched because our tactics were controversial on campus.
In video, licensed by Buzzfeed from the WGBH Boston television station's Media Library and Archives, now available online at BuzzFeed in it's entirety, Obama praised the "excellence of his scholarship."
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- Chris S. thinks At Harvard, Obama Dived Into Diversit... is Win
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Funny story: 15-year-old me thought it would be hilarious to say I was an Alaskan Inuit on my PSAT. Fast forward three years and 18-year-old (A-B student, white upper middle class) me gets an invite to apply to Harvard by the Native American group there…. Oops
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is obama really part muslim?his name barack hussien obama?
- julietg2 thinks At Harvard, Obama Dived Into Diversit... is WTF
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZGmZ0fhH5fM
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We might not always be in favor of the eternal battle between Elephants and Donkeys, but it's hard for this TAL editor to not admire the man on many levels, and this is one of them. To those eagerly frothing over the chance of a conspiracy: Truly, there are so many more interesting American conspiracy theories out there. Honestly. Pick up an internet and watch a few episodes of the X-Files while you're at it. You'll be so much more pleased with your passage of time.
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Duh, of course Breitbart claims important details have been “edited out” as they are fighting for relevance in the wake of the death of that pathetic shitbag.
- benr11 At Harvard, Obama Dived Into Diversit... and thinks it’s Win
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Would somebody mind explaining how something Obama said over 20 years ago, while a student, would be relevant today? Even IF this video was edited, even IF he says something ridiculous or controversial, so what? It was 21 years ago. How could it possibly matter? How could it influence anybody at all? We know how Obama governs and what he believes NOW, he's been President for four years. Who cares what he did, said, or believed two decades ago while he was a college student? This is exactly what will happen IF there is unreleased footage: It will piss off far right conservatives who already hate the President, moderates (the majority) won't give a damn at all, and liberals, if anything, will like Obama even more. All in all this is non-issue.
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And the Obama/Ben Smith lovefest continues… Stand up there Ben, wipe off those knees. Sheriff Joe loves ya!
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I guess we'll see what the deal is tonight on Hannity @ 9 EST — http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/03/07/buzzefeed-selectively-edits-obama-tape
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I doubt I would have cared about this before. But now, I'm really curious to see what parts Buzzfeed edited out.
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Breitbart says either Buzzfeed or he Boston T.V. selectively edited what your site is posting. If that is true,and i believe Breitbart,please correct and list as “edited” video and offer there are some portions which were selectively removed.
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its dove, not dived…
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Is it me or does he put his hand in and out of his pocket 40 times
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That is obviously a heavily edited video with alot of missing content. Looks like Ben Smith is covering for Obama for the thousandth time.
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Do people that hire for your company make sure the person they are interviewing can use grammar properly? I mean…Does you guys check to see if the person you're hiring knows some grammers? I'm going to apply.
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Isn't this about when he was supposed to be receiving his secret Indonesian terrorist training under the alias Barry Sorrentos, to help Muslims to take over the White House (which could happen any minute in his second term because he's just biding his time…)?
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(contemporaneous article does not mention Barack Obama)
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/26/us/harvard-law-school-torn-by-race-issue.html -
I love that all the Faceboob comments are faulting the man for being able to speak well. Dem' fancy folks r'talkihn! UHMURIKUH!
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“YES BUT WHO FUNDED HIS EDUCATION!!!!”- Some idiot
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Where the heck is the teleprompter??
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Small error — Obama graduated in 1991. “As President of the Harvard Law Review in the spring of his final year there, 1990” — which puts this video in the Spring of 1991. As fate would have it, I happened to have been there, standing pretty close to the person holding the camera.