Soon after Obama lost his 2000 congressional race, Kantor wrote, “the faculty saw an opening and made him its best offer yet: Tenure upon hiring. A handsome salary, more than the $60,000 he was making in the State Senate or the $60,000 he earned teaching part time. A job for Michelle Obama directing the legal clinic.”
Epstein told TheDC that no such opportunity was ever extended to Barack Obama. Fischel, he added, would never have been authorized to make an offer so generous.
“I wish I still had my email to Jodi,” he lamented, “because I wrote Jodi Kantor in no uncertain terms that the matter had never come to the faculty, and that under no circumstances would an offer to Obama be tenured. Indeed I was completely taken aback by the story.”
Epstein drew a clear line of distinction between full tenure and “tenure track” positions — which offered no guarantees but could result in tenure at some future date.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member