Why are these people prof at colleges?
Ogletree’s a professor because in the late 80s there were few if any minority professors on the Harvard Law School faculty, and the students and leftist professors on the faculty got together and demonstrated (including illegal sit-ins) to force the school to immediately hire minority professors, even if they didn’t meet the normal qualifications.
I remember something published in the New Republic to the effect that the faculty lowered the standards for making Ogletree a tenured professor, and only required that he publish one serious scholarly article in order to get tenure — and even after getting this special break, Ogletree had students ghostwrite the article for him. Assuming that’s true (I don’t know; I’m just summarizing what was in the New Republic), Ogletree committed fraud to get on the Harvard law faculty.
It was a big scandal at the time, but no one could prove it (obviously Ogletree and the students weren’t talking), so he got tenure. Only a few years ago did proof emerge of Ogletrere’s habit of having students write the stuff he publishes, when some students made the mistake of plagiarizing from a couple books.
Everything about Ogletree looks like a disgrace. I don’t understand why the Obama campaign would have anything to do with him. I guess the idea was that, for all his faults, the fact that Ogletree happens to be black would immunize him from criticism — because to criticize someone who happens to be black, for anything, is racist, right?