34 new york | august 5–18, 2019
story spoke in similarly soaring terms. One,
Jonas Blank, described her as “patient and
plainspoken, like an elementary-school
teacher is expected to be, but also intense
and sharp the way a law professor is sup-
posed to be.” Several former students who
are now (and were then) Republicans de-
clined to talk to me on the record precisely
because they liked her so much and did not
want to contribute to furthering her politi-
cal prospects by speaking warmly of her.
Yet it remains an open question whether
the work Warren does so very well—the
profession about which she is passionate
and that informs her approach to politics—
will work for her on the presidential-
campaign trail.
Plenty of our former presidents have
been teachers. Some of them, including
William Howard Taft and Barack Obama,
taught law; some, including Millard Fill-
more, primary school. Warren has been
both law professor and primary-school
teacher, and as a person who ran for office
for the first time in her 60s, her four de-
cades as a teacher define her in a way
Obama’s stint as an instructor in consti-
tutional law never did. Here, as in all else,
it matters that she’s a woman. Teaching is
a profession that, in post-agrarian Amer-
ica, was explicitly meant to be filled by
women. That means teachers historically
were some of the only women to wield
certain kinds of public power: They could
ev aluate and punish, and so it was easy to
resent them.
In 20 19, we have a historic number of
female candidates in contention for the
Democratic nomination. But many of
them have approached politics via tradi-
tionally male paths: Kamala Harris and
Amy Klobuchar were prosecutors, Kirsten
Gillibrand worked at a white-shoe law
firm, Tulsi Gabbard was in the military.
Elite law schools were historically the do-
main of powerful men, but on the cam-
paign trail, Warren is determined to es-
tablish herself not simply as an educator
of the elite but also (with an anecdote she
trots out often) as a kid who used to line
up her dolls and pretend to assign them
homework. The candidate’s presentation
of her teaching career—from kids with
disabilities at a New Jersey public school
to fif th-grade Sunday-schoolers in Texas
to Kennedys in Cambridge—as key to her
identity means she is hurtling toward the
White House as a specific kind of femi-
nized archetype.
It ’s a risk. Schoolmarm, after all, is a de-
rogatory descriptor, one that was deployed
against Hillary Clinton, also a former law
professor, and one that flicks at the well-
worn stereotype of the stern lady who canSince her last name was at the end of the
alphabet, Warren was spared public humili-
ation, but she left her first law-school class
badly shaken, with a degree of clarity about
how she must move forward: “Read all the
words and look up what you don’t know.”
In the following years, Warren became a
law-school professor: first teaching night
classes at Rutgers and eventually landing at
Harvard, where she worked for 16 years be-
fore becoming a U.S. senator from Massa-
chusetts in 2013.
In 1999, more than 20 years after Warren
attended her first law class at Rutgers, Jay
O’Keeffe, who now works as a consumer-
protection lawyer in Roanoke, Virginia, at-
tended his first law class at Harvard. It was
taught by Warren. “She did not say anything
like ‘Hello’ or ‘I’m Liz Warren, and welcome
to Contracts,’ ” O’Keeffe recalled. “Instead,
she put her books down, looked over her
glasses at her seating chart, and said, ‘Mr.
Szeliga, what’s ‘assumpsit’?’ ”
Assumpsit—which, Warren told me,
“means that the action is in contract rather
than in tort”— became Professor Warren’s
calling card, though she says no matter how
widely advance warnings spread, 96 per-
cent of new law students would walk in un-
prepared for it. When Joseph Kennedy III
introduced Warren at the Democratic Na-
tional Convention three summers ago, the
Massachusetts representative and grand-
son of Robert Kennedy recalled his “first
day of law school, my very first class” in
2006, during which he had been the un-
lucky mark: “Mr. Kennedy, do you own a
dictionary? That’s what people do when
they don’t know what a word means; they
look it up,” he recalled her saying during his
public immolation. “I never showed up un-
prepared for Professor Elizabeth Warren
ever again.”
“Yes, I do to my students what my teacher
did to me,” Warren said gleefully, as she
drank tea on her Cambridge sunporch in
July. She spoke in the present tense, as sheoften does, about her teaching career, even
though it’s been more than eight years since
she has commanded a classroom.
So much of Warren’s approach to peda-
gogy can be understood via the assumpsit
gambit: With it, she establishes direct com-
munication and affirms that she’s not going
to be doing all the talking or all the think-
ing; she’s going to be hearing from everyone
in the room. By starting with a question that
so many get wrong but wind up learning the
answer to, she’s also telegraphing that not
knowing is part of the process of learning.
Warren’s work as a teacher—the profes-
sion she dreamed of from the time she was
in second grade—remains a crucial part of
her identity, self-presentation, and commu-
nicative style. Her 2014 book, A Fighting
Chance, opens with these sentences: “I’m
Elizabeth Warren. I’m a wife, a mother, and
a grandmother. For nearly all my life, I
would have said I’m a teacher, but I guess I
really can’t say that anymore.”
But just because she’s not in the class-
room these days doesn’t mean that those
she’s talking to can’t smell it on her from a
mile away. Leading up to the first round of
debates, the Onion ran a headline reading,
“Elizabeth Warren Spends Evenings Tutor-
ing Underperforming Candidates.” And
during a June episode of Desus & Mero, the
two Bronx hosts did a riff on how Warren
“definitely gives you teacher swag, but the
teacher-that-cares-a-lot swag,” imagining
her being the kind of teacher who comes to
your house to tell your mom you have po-
tential. “You came all the way to the Bronx
for this? Wow ... that blanquita cares.”
Warren has won multiple teaching
awards, and when I first profiled her in
2011, early in her Senate run and during
what would be her last semester of teaching
at Harvard, I spoke to students who were so
over the moon about her that my editors
decided I could not use many of their quotes
because they were simply too laudatory.
Many former students I interviewed for thishe story of Elizabeth Warren’s career in education—
at least in legal education— begins with one word:
assumpsit. ¶ It is literally the first word of the first case
she had to read for the first class she ever took as a 24-year-old law student
at Rutgers University in 1973. She has recalled, in vivid detail, the fear and
confusion she’d felt as a young mother, former public-school teacher, and
unlikely law student when her first law professor walked into the room and
called on a student whose name began with A, asking her, “Ms. Aaronson,
what is ‘assumpsit’?” Ms. Aaronson had not known, and neither had the
next several students he called on after her. Ms. Warren also had not known
what assumpsit meant, despite having done the reading for the day.T
PHOTOGRAPHS: PREVIOUS SPREAD, LEIF SKOOGFORS/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES; THIS SPREAD, MATT ROURKE/AP PHOTOTRANSMITTED________ COPY ___ DD ___ AD ___ PD ___ EICTRANSMITTED1619FEA_Elizabeth Warren_lay [Print]_35541956.indd 34 8/2/19 6:37 PM34 newyork| august5–18, 2019
story spoke in similarly soaring terms. One,
Jonas Blank, described her as “patient and
plainspoken,like anelementary-school
teacheris expectedtobe,butalsointense
andsharpthewaya lawprofessoris sup-
posedtobe.”Severalformerstudentswho
arenow(andwerethen)Republicansde-
clinedtotalktomeontherecordprecisely
becausetheylikedhersomuchanddidnot
wanttocontributetofurtheringherpoliti-
calprospectsbyspeakingwarmlyofher.
Yet it remainsanopenquestionwhether
theworkWarrendoessovery well—the
professionaboutwhichsheispassionate
andthatinformsherapproachtopolitics—
willworkforher onthe presidential-
campaigntrail.
Plentyofourformerpresidentshave
beenteachers.Someofthem,including
WilliamHowardTaftandBarackObama,
taughtlaw;some,includingMillardFill-
more,primaryschool.Warrenhasbeen
bothlawprofessorandprimary-school
teacher,andasa personwhoranforoffice
forthefirst timeinher60s,herfourde-
cadesasa teacherdefineherina way
Obama’sstintasaninstructorinconsti-
tutionallawneverdid.Here,asinallelse,
it mattersthat she’s a woman.Teachingis
a professionthat,inpost-agrarianAmer-
ica,wasexplicitlymeanttobefilledby
women.That meansteachershistorically
weresomeoftheonlywomentowield
certainkindsofpublicpower:Theycould
ev aluateandpunish,andsoit waseasyto
resentthem.
In 20 19,wehavea historicnumberof
femalecandidatesincontentionforthe
Democraticnomination.Butmany of
themhaveapproachedpoliticsviatradi-
tionallymalepaths:KamalaHarrisand
AmyKlobucharwereprosecutors,Kirsten
Gillibrandworkedat a white-shoelaw
firm,TulsiGabbardwasinthemilitary.
Elitelawschoolswerehistoricallythedo-
mainofpowerfulmen,butonthecam-
paigntrail,Warrenisdeterminedtoes-
tablishherselfnotsimplyasaneducator
oftheelitebutalso(withananecdoteshe
trotsoutoften)asa kidwhousedtoline
upherdollsandpretendtoassignthem
homework.Thecandidate’spresentation
ofherteachingcareer—fromkidswith
disabilitiesata NewJerseypublicschool
tofif th-gradeSunday-schoolersinTexas
toKennedysinCambridge—askeytoher
identitymeanssheis hurtlingtowardthe
WhiteHouseasa specifickindoffemi-
nizedarchetype.
It ’s a risk.Schoolmarm,afterall,is a de-
rogatorydescriptor, onethat wasdeployed
againstHillaryClinton,alsoa formerlaw
professor,andonethat flicksat thewell-
wornstereotypeofthesternladywhocanSinceherlastname was at the end of the
alphabet,Warren was spared public humili-
ation, but she left her first law-school class
badly shaken, with a degree of clarity about
how she must move forward: “Read all the
words and look up what you don’t know.”
In the following years, Warren became a
law-school professor: first teaching night
classes at Rutgers and eventually landing at
Harvard, where she worked for 16 years be-
fore becoming a U.S. senator from Massa-
chusetts in 2013.
In 1999, more than 20 years after Warren
attended her first law class at Rutgers, Jay
O’Keeffe, who now works as a consumer-
protection lawyer in Roanoke, Virginia, at-
tended his first law class at Harvard. It was
taught by Warren. “She did not say anything
like ‘Hello’ or ‘I’m Liz Warren, and welcome
to Contracts,’ ” O’Keeffe recalled. “Instead,
she put her books down, looked over her
glasses at her seating chart, and said, ‘Mr.
Szeliga, what’s ‘assumpsit’?’ ”
Assumpsit—which, Warren told me,
“means that the action is in contract rather
than in tort”— became Professor Warren’s
calling card, though she says no matter how
widely advance warnings spread, 96 per-
cent of new law students would walk in un-
prepared for it. When Joseph Kennedy III
introduced Warren at the Democratic Na-
tional Convention three summers ago, the
Massachusetts representative and grand-
son of Robert Kennedy recalled his “first
day of law school, my very first class” in
2006, during which he had been the un-
lucky mark: “Mr. Kennedy, do you own a
dictionary? That’s what people do when
they don’t know what a word means; they
look it up,” he recalled her saying during his
public immolation. “I never showed up un-
prepared for Professor Elizabeth Warren
ever again.”
“Yes, I do to my students what my teacher
did to me,” Warren said gleefully, as she
drank tea on her Cambridge sunporch in
July. She spoke in the present tense, as she
often does, about her teaching career, even
though it’s been more than eight years since
she has commanded a classroom.
So much of Warren’s approach to peda-
gogy can be understood via the assumpsit
gambit: With it, she establishes direct com-
munication and affirms that she’s not going
to be doing all the talking or all the think-
ing; she’s going to be hearing from everyone
in the room. By starting with a question that
so many get wrong but wind up learning the
answer to, she’s also telegraphing that not
knowing is part of the process of learning.
Warren’s work as a teacher—the profes-
sion she dreamed of from the time she was
in second grade—remains a crucial part of
her identity, self-presentation, and commu-
nicative style. Her 2014 book, A Fighting
Chance, opens with these sentences: “I’m
Elizabeth Warren. I’m a wife, a mother, and
a grandmother. For nearly all my life, I
would have said I’m a teacher, but I guess I
really can’t say that anymore.”
But just because she’s not in the class-
room these days doesn’t mean that those
she’s talking to can’t smell it on her from a
mile away. Leading up to the first round of
debates, the Onion ran a headline reading,
“Elizabeth Warren Spends Evenings Tutor-
ing Underperforming Candidates.” And
during a June episode of Desus & Mero, the
two Bronx hosts did a riff on how Warren
“definitely gives you teacher swag, but the
teacher-that-cares-a-lot swag,” imagining
her being the kind of teacher who comes to
your house to tell your mom you have po-
tential. “You came all the way to the Bronx
for this? Wow ... that blanquita cares.”
Warren has won multiple teaching
awards, and when I first profiled her in
2011, early in her Senate run and during
what would be her last semester of teaching
at Harvard, I spoke to students who were so
over the moon about her that my editors
decided I could not use many of their quotes
because they were simply too laudatory.
Many former students I interviewed for thistory of Elizabeth Warren’s career in education—
ast in legal education— begins with one word:
assumpsit. ¶ It is literally the first word of the first caseshe had to read for the first class she ever took as a 24-year-old law student
at Rutgers University in 1973. She has recalled, in vivid detail, the fear and
confusion she’d felt as a young mother, former public-school teacher, and
unlikelylaw student when her first law professor walked into the room and
calledona student whose name began with A, asking her, “Ms. Aaronson,
whatis ‘assumpsit’?” Ms. Aaronson had not known, and neither had the
nextseveralstudents he called on after her. Ms. Warren also had not known
whatassumpsit meant, despite having done the reading for the day.
PHOTOGRAPHS: PREVIOUS SPREAD, LEIF SKOOGFORS/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES; THIS SPREAD, MATT ROURKE/AP PHOTO