Lee Bollinger

Lee Carroll Bollinger (born April 30, 1946) is an American attorney and educator who served as the 19th president of Columbia University from 2002 to 2023 and as the 12th president of the University of Michigan from 1996 to 2002.

Bollinger is currently the Seth Low Professor and a faculty member at Columbia Law School. He is a legal scholar of the First Amendment and freedom of speech. While serving as President of the University of Michigan, he was at the center of two notable United States Supreme Court cases regarding the use of affirmative action in admissions processes. He also served as chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York board of directors in 2011, and was a member of the board from 2006 to 2012.

Early life and education

Bollinger was born in Santa Rosa, California, the son of Patricia Mary and Lee C. Bollinger. He was raised in Santa Rosa, California, and Baker City, Oregon.

In 1963, Bollinger spent a year as an exchange student in Brazil with AFS Intercultural Programs. He received a Bachelor of Science with a major in political science from the University of Oregon in 1968, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and was a brother in Theta Chi fraternity. He received a Juris Doctor from Columbia Law School in New York City in 1971.

Career

In 1971 and 1972, Bollinger served as a law clerk to Judge Wilfred Feinberg of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In 1972 and 1973, he was a law clerk to Chief Justice Warren Burger of the Supreme Court of the United States.

In 1973, Bollinger joined the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School, becoming a full professor in 1979, and dean of the school in 1987.

In 1994, he was appointed provost of Dartmouth College before returning to the University of Michigan, where he served as president from 1996 to 2002.

Columbia University president

Bollinger assumed his position as president of Columbia University in June 2002.

In 2003, Bollinger was a named defendant representing the University of Michigan in the Supreme Court cases '' Grutter v. Bollinger'' and '' Gratz v. Bollinger''. In the Grutter case, the Court found by a 5–4 margin that the affirmative action policies of the University of Michigan Law School were constitutional. But at the same time, it found by a 6–3 margin in the Gratz case that the undergraduate admissions policies of Michigan were not narrowly tailored to a compelling interest in diversity and 20 predetermined points are awarded to underrepresented minorities, and thus that they violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

In 2004, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society.

Bollinger lived in the Columbia President's House from February 2004 until the end of his tenure as president, after the building underwent a $23 million renovation.

In November 2006, Bollinger was elected to the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, a term lasting for three years.

On October 19, 2010, the Board of Trustees announced through a university-wide email that Bollinger had agreed to continue as president for at least the next five years.

Bollinger was the subject of criticism for his role in advocating the expansion of the university into the Manhattanville neighborhood and the use of eminent domain to help it seize property there. The Bollinger administration's expansion plans were criticized as fundamentally incompatible with the 197/a plan for development crafted by the community, and for failing to address the neighborhood's need to maintain affordable housing stock.

Bollinger attempted to expand the international scope of the university, took frequent trips abroad and invited world leaders to its campus. Bollinger was criticized for taking a neutral public position on controversies regarding the Middle East Languages and Cultures (MEALAC) department.

In 2013, Bollinger's total compensation was $4.6 million, making him the highest paid private college president in the United States.

At a January 2021 rally during a student tuition strike protesting the university's tuition rates, Young Democratic Socialists of America organizers cited as further evidence of alleged inequitable allocation of university resources the fact that Bollinger's salary had been frozen that year, while Barnard College administration's salaries had been cut, including by 20 percent in the case of Sian Beilock, Barnard College's president.

In February 2022, the '' Columbia Daily Spectator'' reported that Bollinger had purchased an Upper West Side apartment for $11.7 million. In 2008, his salary was $1.7 million.

Bollinger's residence was the site of demonstrations in which his high salary was criticized as an example of the university's "inequitable allocation of resources."

World Leaders Forum

Columbia invited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak at the World Leaders Forum on September 24, 2007. A number of local and national politicians denounced Columbia for hosting Ahmadinejad.

Bollinger described the event as part of "Columbia's long-standing tradition of serving as a major forum for robust debate, especially on global issues." Bollinger released a statement outlining his introduction, explaining to the student body that the free speech afforded to Ahmadinejad was for the sake of the students and the faculty rather than for the benefit of Ahmadinejad himself, whom Bollinger referred to as "exhibiting all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator."

Bollinger was criticized by students at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, but praised by Bob Kerrey who said that Bollinger "turned what could have been an embarrassment for higher education into something quite positive."

Federal Reserve Bank of New York

In July 2010, he was appointed chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York board of directors for 2011. Previously, he had served as deputy chair.

Retirement

On April 14, 2022, Bollinger announced in an email to the Columbia student body that he would be retiring from his role as President effective June 30, 2023. In January 2023, Columbia announced that Minouche Shafik, president of the London School of Economics, would succeed him as president of the university.

Personal life

Bollinger is married to artist Jean Magnano Bollinger. They have a son and a daughter and five grandchildren. Bollinger's family is Catholic.

Books

In addition to his academic and administrative positions, Bollinger has written many articles and books on the subject of free speech.
*''The Tolerant Society: Freedom of Speech and Extremist Speech in America'' (Oxford University Press, 1986)
*''Images of a Free Press'' (University of Chicago Press, 1991)
*''Eternally Vigilant: Free Speech in the Modern Era'' (University Of Chicago Press, 2002)
*''Uninhibited, Robust, and Wide-Open: A Free Press for a New Century'' (Oxford University Press, 2010)
*''The Free Speech Century'' (Oxford University Press, 2018)
*''Regardless of Frontiers: Global Freedom of Expression in a Troubled World'' (Columbia University Press, 2021)
*''National Security, Leaks and Freedom of the Press: The Pentagon Papers Fifty Years On'' (Oxford University Press, 2021)
*''Social Media, Freedom of Speech, and the Future of our Democracy'' (Oxford University Press, 2022)
*''A Legacy of Discrimination: The Essential Constitutionality of Affirmative Action'' (Oxford University Press, 2023)

See also

* List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States (Chief Justice)

References

External links

Columbia University President's Office: Bollinger BiographyUniversity of Michigan Law School: Bollinger Biography
*
*
Columbia Spectator's Eye Magazine profile, "Finding Bollinger," by Jacob Schneider and Joy Resmovits"No, I Won’t Start Spying on My Foreign-Born Students"
op-ed by Bollinger published in ''The Washington Post''

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bollinger, Lee
1946 births
Living people
20th-century American academics
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century Roman Catholics
21st-century American lawyers
21st-century American male writers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century Roman Catholics
Alumni of Clare Hall, Cambridge
American expatriates in Brazil
American legal writers
American male non-fiction writers
American Roman Catholic writers
Catholics from California
Catholics from Oregon
Columbia Law School alumni
Columbia Law School faculty
Columbia University faculty
Deans of University of Michigan Law School
Fellows of Clare Hall, Cambridge
First Amendment scholars
Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States
Members of the American Philosophical Society
People from Baker City, Oregon
People from Santa Rosa, California
Presidents of Columbia University
Presidents of the University of Michigan
University of Oregon alumni