Law Grad’s American Dream: A Career and a Better Presidential Answer
Indiana University law school graduate Ted Brassfield is disappointed in President Obama’s answer to his American Dream question, posed at a CNBC town hall meeting.
Brassfield, 30, told Obama that he had been inspired by his campaign, but “that inspiration is dying away.” What he really wanted to know, Brassfield said: “Is the American dream dead for me?” Absolutely not, Obama had replied, saying any other country in the world would be happy to change places with the United States.
Brassfield told the National Law Journal in a Q-and-A that he doesn’t think Obama provided an answer to his question. What he really wanted to hear Obama say, Brassfield said, was something along these lines: “This is why you should still have hope as a 25- or 30-something. This is why I think that the economy is not going to be miserable for the next 15 years.”
Brassfield graduated in 2009 with student loans in the “six figures.” He has been doing “sporadic contract work” and is waiting for the results of the bar exam in his native state of Colorado. He has long admired lawyers who stood up for civil rights, and he’d like to work as a government lawyer. But he’s discouraged by his job prospects.
“For the time being, I know way too many people whose law degree has led to contract jobs,” he told the NLJ. “That doesn’t create the basis of a career, and that’s what I was trying to get at with my question to President Obama. The American dream isn’t just having your own home. It’s not just having a family. The American dream, at least the one I was brought up to believe in, also involves making something of yourself—giving back by doing and creating and having a career.”
