Lee Carroll Bollinger (born April 30, 1946) is an American lawyer and educator who is serving as the 19th and current president of Columbia University, where he is also the Seth Low Professor of the University and a faculty member of Columbia Law School. Formerly the president of the University of Michigan, he is a noted legal scholar of the First Amendment and freedom of speech. He was at the center of two notable United States Supreme Court cases regarding the use of affirmative action in admissions processes. In July 2010, Bollinger was appointed chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York board of directors for 2011. Previously, he had served as deputy chair. In 2004, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society. On April 14, 2022, Bollinger announced in an email to the Columbia student body that he will be retiring from his role as President effective June 30, 2023. Life and career 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 current 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. Affirmative action cases In 2003, after having served as president of the University of Michigan, Bollinger made headlines as the 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