[KarlInOhio]

Colleges are very picky about the term professor. Usually it is for a tenure track, full time employee of the college or university. Obama was just an instructor, but "professor" sounds better so professor he became.

[bvw]

Colleges today are full of picayune idiots in every position of authority. How can they even be called colleges! Note that the UNIVERSITY (”college” is SO declassé) itself used the word “professor”.

[Houghton M.]

He was not “just an instructor.” You are applying the ranks and categories used in 4-year universities and colleges, where instructor marks non-tenure track and assistant/associate/full professor marks tenure/track and tenured.

Law schools are different. You can’t simply transfer the ranks and categories. They have special categories for professional reasons.

He was offered tenure/tenure-track and turned it down, more than once. He did not want an academic career.

Sure, he was offered it out of affirmative action, but he was offered it. The rank he had was in between “mere instructor” and tenured professor.