PERSON: Lee Bollinger

Columbia Law School

Professor

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 president of the University of Michigan from 1996 to 2002. He is currently the Seth Low Professor of the University and a faculty member of Columbia Law School. He is a noted 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 for 2011, and was a member of the board from 2006 to 2012.

Bollinger was born in Santa Rosa, California, the son of Patricia Mary and Lee C. Bollinger. He was raised there and in Baker City, Oregon. Bollinger spent a year (1963) as an exchange student in Brazil with AFS Intercultural Programs. He received his B.S. in political science (1968; Phi Beta Kappa) from the University of Oregon, where he became a brother of Theta Chi Fraternity, and his J.D. from Columbia Law School (1971). He served as a law clerk to Judge Wilfred Feinberg of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (1971–1972), and Chief Justice Warren Burger of the Supreme Court of the United States (1972–1973). Bollinger went on to join the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School in 1973, becoming a full professor in 1979, and Dean of the school in 1987. He was appointed provost of Dartmouth College in 1994, before returning to the University of Michigan in 1996 as president.

Bollinger assumed his position as president of Columbia University in June 2002. 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. He retired as President of Columbia University on June 30, 2023.

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