As the Democratic presidential contest wears on, few details about the candidates’ pasts seem to be going without scrutiny. And now, that includes the precise title that Barack Obama held at the University of Chicago, where he taught law-school courses from 1992 to 2004.

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign has tried to make an issue out of whether Mr. Obama—whose formal title at the university was lecturer from 1992 to 1996 and then senior lecturer from 1996 to 2004—has improperly embellished his role at the university by referring to himself on the campaign trail as having been a professor at the law school, according to CNN.

Mrs. Clinton’s campaign has distributed a press release, CNN said, that quotes a Chicago Sun-Times column from 2004 commenting on the title issue: “Several direct-mail pieces issued for Obama’s primary campaign said he was a law professor at the University of Chicago,” the column said. “He is not. He is a senior lecturer (now on leave) at the school. In academia, there is a vast difference between the two titles. Details matter.”

But the university itself has come to Mr. Obama’s defense, saying that its senior lecturers are considered professors.

“Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track,” a university statement said, according to CNN.