Lee Bollinger
Lee C. Bollinger ( born 1946 in Santa Rosa, California) is an American lawyer, professor, and since 2002 president of Columbia University.
Biography
After schooling Bollinger studied at the University of Oregon and earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1968, before he completed a subsequent study of law with a Juris Doctor ( JD). After that, he was first secretary ( Law Clerk ) by Wilfred Feinberg, a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals, and subsequently by Warren E. Burger, Chief Justice of the United States.
In 1973 he accepted an appointment as professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School and taught there for more than 20 years until 1994. Recently, he was from 1987 to 1994 and Dean of the Law School.
He then moved in 1994 to the Dartmouth College in Hanover (New Hampshire), where he accepted a call as professor of government teaching. At the same time there was between 1994 and 1996 Provost of the College, before he was 1996-2002 President of the University of Michigan. Since 2002 Bollinger is the successor of George Erik Rupp President of Columbia University, and thus of one of the eight universities of the so-called Ivy League.
In addition to his teaching, he also wrote several legal textbooks, in which he dealt particularly with the press and of speech and freedom of expression, that is made up of the 1st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States arising Freedom of Speech. Among his most famous publications include The Tolerant Society: Freedom of Speech and Extremist Speech in America ( 1986), Images of a Free Press ( 1991) and Eternally Vigilant: Free Speech in the Modern Era ( 2001). In addition, he has published on the topics and articles in newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal.
He also was a board member of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and is also a member of the board of The Washington Post Company since 2007. Bollinger is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Philosophical Society and the Council on Foreign Relations and a trustee of the Gerald Ford Foundation and the Kresge Foundation. He is also a member of the Board of Governors of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
The Michigan State University awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2001.
In an interview in Columbia Magazine Bollinger Richard Bulliet wrote in 2007 the idea of the then Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to give a guest lecture and a discussion invite. This invitation by the university, the Bollinger had to answer as president, was very controversial, but in principle advocated by Senator and presidential candidate Obama as an expression of freedom of expression