Barack Obama of Harvard Law School—and Beyond

During his student years at Harvard Law School, Barack Obama, J.D. ’91, now president-elect of the United States, also came to the attention of the wider University community.

During his student years at Harvard Law School, Barack Obama, J.D. '91, now president-elect of the United States, also came to the attention of the wider University community.

In 1990, he was elected president of the Harvard Law Review (as reported here from the Harvard Magazine account), the first African American to attain that position in the journal’s then 103-year-old history. The news made national headlines, as the Harvard Crimson reported in a detailed account.

In 1991, Obama agreed to run for the Board of Overseers as one of three petition candidates put forward by the group Harvard-Radcliffe Alumni/ae Against Apartheid, which was seeking to persuade the University to divest its holdings in firms doing business in South Africa. None of the three was elected. (Note the members of the complete slates, including such prominent figures as Steven Ballmer ’77, now CEO of Microsoft.)

Harvard Magazine covered his campaign for U.S. Senate from Illinois in mid 2004, when he ran against another Harvard Law School alumnus.

In more recent campus comments, the November 4 issue of the Crimson reported the Morning Prayers remarks of Loeb University Professor Laurence H. Tribe, a constitutional law scholar, bearing on the qualities of his former student. And one of the panels convened for Harvard Law School's capital-campaign celebration featured a discussion of potential changes in the Supreme Court's makeup, and the contentious issues it might face, during an Obama administration. And the law school published this write-up and collection of links concerning its newly famous alumnus.

Finally, with the votes tallied, it's time to revise the trivia manuals. Speaking at the Law School campaign celebration on October 23, Harvard President Drew Faust offered this bit of historical humor: “[I]t’s quite possible that 12 days from now, Rutherford B. Hayes may no longer be the only right answer to the trivia question, ‘What graduate of Harvard Law School was elected president of the United States?’” Occupying a whole new category of trivia, of course, is Michelle (Robinson) Obama, J.D. ’88.

You might also like

Preserving the History of Jim Crow Era Safe Havens

Architectural historian Catherine Zipf is building a database of Green Book sites.  

Matt Levine's Bloomberg Finance Column Makes Money Funny

Matt Levine’s spunky Bloomberg column

Your Guide to Summer 2025 Along Boston Harbor

Enjoying Boston Harbor’s Renaissance this summer

Most popular

Is the Constitution Broken?

Harvard legal scholars debate the state of our founding national document.

Admissions after Affirmative Action

The composition of colleges’ incoming class after the Supreme Court ruling

Two Years of Doxxing at Harvard

What happens when students are publicly named and shamed for their views?

Explore More From Current Issue

James Muller in white lab coat leaning on railing in hospital hallway.

Free Speech, the Bomb—and Donald Trump

A Harvard cardiologist on the unlikely alliances that shaped a global movement to prevent nuclear war

Whimsical illustration of students rushing through ornate campus gate from bus marked “Welcome New Students.”

Highlights from Harvard’s Past

The Medical School goes coed, University poet wins Nobel Prize. 

Two women in traditional kimonos, one lighting a cigarette, in a scene from Apart from You.

Harvard Film Archive Spotlights Japanese Director Mikio Naruse

A retrospective of the filmmaker’s works, from Floating Clouds to Flowing