In 1990, as the first African-American editor of the student-run Harvard Law Review, Barack Obama reportedly quipped about the publication: “Just remember folks: Nobody reads it,” according to Politico.

While that may have been true at the time, the eight volumes published during Mr. Obama’s tenure are now being scrutinized by supporters and opponents hoping to glean information about the political leanings of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. And all of that despite the fact that Mr. Obama, now a first-term U.S. senator from Illinois, did not write a single bylined article during his year leading the publication.

The verdict, according to Politico reporters Jeffrey Ressner and Ben Smith, is that Mr. Obama expanded the review’s liberal focus on issues of gender and race, but also reached out to conservative writers who were critical of affirmative action and called for citizens to take more personal responsibility.