Scholarship

A Conversation with President Lee C. Bollinger»
Columbia College Today, Winter 2013-14 

In this interview with CCT Editor Alex Sachare ’71, Bollinger talks about the philosophy behind the Global Centers, their impact on our students and faculty now and in the future, and what it means to be a global citizen in the 21st century. READ MORE

 

Trade can break down China's Great Firewall»
The Washington Post, December 10, 2013 

Beijing has hinted ominously that it might rescind the right to live in China from as many as two dozen foreign journalists based there for U.S. news organizations. READ MORE

 

To Move Forward, We Must Look Back»
The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 27, 2013

In the immediate aftermath of the Supreme Court ruling in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, the decision has been understood as upholding the principles underlying affirmative action to create a diverse learning environment, opening the door to a still unknown level of judicial review of admissions practices at colleges and universities, and generally sidestepping the most fundamental questions about diversity and race in America... READ MORE

 

A Long, Slow Drift from Racial Justice»
The New York Times, June 24, 2013

The Supreme Court has again upheld the principles behind race-conscious affirmative action, no small feat for the cause of diversity in higher education. But in framing the issue very technically, it has, wittingly or not, continued its drift away from the ideals it advanced in the civil rights era, beginning with Brown v. Board of Education... READ MORE

 

The Real Mismatch»
Slate, May 30, 2013

The distance the United States has traveled in overcoming racial discrimination reflects one of our nation’s greatest achievements. Our long struggle toward redeeming the country’s founding ideal of equality has been embraced for decades by virtually every institutional sector in American society. But we still have a long way to go... READ MORE

 

Defending Free Speech in the Digital Age»
Foreign Policy, November 26, 2012

Freedom of speech is under threat around the world. On one side of this battle are governments and corporations seeking, to various degrees, to set limits on what is acceptable to say and what is not. On the other are ordinary citizens and activists demanding that their voices be heard -- voices that, in this new age of smartphones and social media, are harder than ever to silence, even as technology puts new implements of censorship into the hands of autocrats... READ MORE

 

A high-stakes battle for higher education»
Los Angeles Times, October 9, 2012

There are good reasons the Wednesday argument before the Supreme Court in the case called Fisher vs. University of Texas has prompted more than the usual amount of speculation about the intentions of the justices and the case's likely outcome... READ MORE

 

College Diversity at Risk»
Washington Post, January 15, 2012

There have been few moments in our history when the nation so badly needed institutions to unify the country, overcome divisiveness, and dispel the unfounded “jealousies and prejudices” that our first president warned against... READ MORE

 

News for the World»
Columbia Journalism Review, July/August 2011

The consequences of globalization are both good and bad. Certainly, the most notable benefit is lifting hundreds of millions of people out of lives destined for poverty and sickness, and diffusing basic wealth and well-being... READ MORE

 

Tolerating Dissent »
Foreign Policy, June 1, 2011

Salman Taseer, the late governor of Pakistan's Punjab province, was assassinated on Jan. 4 of this year, killed by his own bodyguard. He would have turned 67 on May 31. Another top Pakistani official, Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti, was shot dead in early March... READ MORE

 

Al Jazeera Can Help U.S. Join Conversation »
Bloomberg, March 15, 2011

In the short time from Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution to the departure of Hosni Mubarak from Cairo to the more ominous events unfolding in Libya, many of America’s assumptions about the Middle East have been challenged and changed. READ MORE

 

American Academy of Arts & Sciences Induction Symposium »
October 10, 2010

The need to build a system of free press that is suitable (from both U.S. and global perspectives) to the conditions of globalization is a subject of intrinsic importance. It is also an example of how the extraordinary forces of globalization are reshaping intellectual fields... READ MORE

 

Baum Lecture, University of Illinois »
September 14, 2010

It is always difficult in the midst of an era to know its defining characteristics. But I would be surprised, if in future decades, people did not say that the period from the end of the twentieth century to the beginning of the twenty-first century was the period in which the shape of the modern world was determined... READ MORE

 

Journalism Needs Government Help »
Wall Street Journal, July 14, 2010

We have entered a momentous period in the history of the American press. The invention of new communications technologies—especially the Internet—is transforming the human capacity to speak... READ MORE

 

President Bollinger Delivers Lecture at University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service »
September 30, 2008

As part of the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service’s “Inspiring Ideas and Action” speakers series, President Bollinger gave a lecture entitled "Uninhibited, Robust, and Wide-Open: The Press and Freedom of the Press in the 20th and 21st Centuries."... READ MORE

 

New York's Next Frontier »
The New York Sun, October 3, 2007

There was a time in the middle of the 20th century when Morningside Heights was not only a spawning ground for the generation of Beat writers; it was also the world center for theoretical physics, with Nobel Prizes as much a fall rite as Yankee pennants... READ MORE

 

What's Next for Diversity? »
New York Amsterdam News, July 12, 2007

For those of us who worked over so many years to reach the Supreme Court and affirm the constitutionality of affirmative action in higher education, which occurred in 2003 in Grutter v. Bollinger, this is the moment we have been dreading... READ MORE

 

Why Diversity Matters »
Chronicle of Higher Education, June 1, 2007

During this frantic admissions season, it is easy for our applicants to think that the most important moment in their college career is when they rip open the mail to find out where they got in and where they didn't... READ MORE

 

Let's Talk About the Future of Diversity »
New York Amsterdam News, May 10, 2007

On May 17, we will honor the fifty-third anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, when the Supreme Court, pressed by Thurgood Marshall, shook the pillars of segregation in announcing its new and resounding principle that “separate is inherently unequal.” ... READ MORE

 

Universities Power City's Economy»
New York Daily News, January 7, 2007

It was recently reported that some 280,000 workers in New York 's thriving financial sector collect more income than the other 1.5 million people working in Manhattan put together... READ MORE

 

Cardozo Lecture on Academic Freedom»
March 23, 2005

On March 23 2005, President Lee C. Bollinger gave the annual Benjamin N. Cardozo Lecture before the Association of the Bar of the City of New York... READ MORE

 

Universities Must Think Globally»
Financial Times, November 14, 2003

At the beginning of the 20th century, Nicholas Murray Butler launched his astonishing 43-year tenure as president of Columbia University by defining the modern research university... READ MORE

 

Educational Equity and Quality: Brown and Rodriguez and Their Aftermath»
College Board Forum, November 3, 2003

In May, we observe an important fiftieth anniversary. I am not referring to Roger Bannister’s running the first sub-four-minute mile on May 6. I am referring, of course, to Brown v. the Board of Education, which was handed down eleven days later... READ MORE

 

The Idea of a University»
Wall Street Journal, October 15, 2003

This week, Columbia University begins a year-long celebration of its 250th anniversary. Founded by Royal Charter in 1754, eight students and one professor (who also served as president) met in the vestry of Trinity Church, near Ground Zero, to begin an institution that today is the fifth-oldest university in the United States and, by any measure, one of the leading institutions of higher learning in the world... READ MORE

 

Seven Myths About Affirmative Action in Universities»
Willamette Law Review, Fall 2002

In the fall of 2002, President Lee C. Bollinger participated in a symposium on "Education and Law" at the College of Law at Willamette University. Below is the text of his speech, which was also published in Volume 38 of the Willamette Law Review... READ MORE