Michelle, Anti-American Radicals, and U of C
Up to now, I haven’t had anything to say about Michelle Obama. However, the Washington Post today has published a long story that has a great deal to say about Michelle Obama’s work at the University of Chicago. The Post story concentrates on Michelle’s involvement in a program to bring medical care to poor South Side Chicago residents. Yet there is a great deal about Michelle Obama’s work at the University of Chicago that goes uncovered here. In particular, the Post has almost nothing to say about Michelle’s five year stint as “founding director” of the university’s community service center. As long as the Post has opened the issue of Michelle’s work for the University of Chicago, I think it’s only fair to say that Michelle’s service there, and particularly her first job, deserves greater scrutiny.
The Hyde Park Herald first reported that Michelle Obama would be hired for a newly created community relations position at the University of Chicago on June 5 of 1996. Obama was to be Associate Dean of Student Services and Director of the University of Chicago Community Service Center, effective September 1, 1996. So Michelle Obama was appointed to a job that had never existed before, shortly after Barack Obama had won the Democratic nomination in his first race for Illinois State Senate. In Hyde Park and the South Side of Chicago, the Democratic nomination is tantamount to election.
Michelle, the Herald reported, had been executive director of Public Allies Chicago since 1991. Public Allies Chicago currently partners with the Asset-Based Community Development Institute at Northwestern University, led by noted community organizers John McKnight and Jody Kretzman. Michelle and Barack both have close links to Public Allies, to the Asset-Based Community Development Institute, to McKnight and to Kretzman. The Asset-Based Community Development Institute and its leaders are closely tied to the Gamaliel Foundation. Barack himself worked directly with the co-founder and Executive