Sunday, May 9, 2004

2OO3 Michiganians of the Year

Mary Sue Coleman and Lee C. Bollinger: They championed the importance of diversity by defending the need for affirmative action

By Maureen Feighan / The Detroit News

Max Ortiz Mary Sue Coleman Age: 60 Residence: Ann Arbor Occupation: University of Michigan president Max Ortiz Lee C. Bollinger Age: 58 Residence: New York Occupation: Columbia University president Why honored: For steering U-M to victory in the affirmative action case Comment on this story Send this story to a friend Get Home Delivery

They come from very different perspectives.

She’s a biochemist and former cancer researcher. He’s a renowned free speech advocate.

Both, however, shared the same view when it came to leading the University of Michigan through a monumental legal challenge on affirmative action, one whose impact continues to reverberate far beyond the world of higher education.

U-M President Mary Sue Coleman and former President Lee C. Bollinger each played a critical role in the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision last June that allowed the use of race in university admissions to ensure a diverse student body.

Bollinger, now president of Columbia University in New York, was the resolute, determined leader who became U-M’s voice for why diversity creates a better learning environment for all students.

When Bollinger left U-M for Columbia in 2002, it was Coleman, the down-to-earth scientist turned administrator, who took the reins of both the university and its legal fight.

Coleman, former president of the University of Iowa and U-M’s first female president, still remembers her first interview with the university’s search committee. It was in the midst of the two lawsuits attacking U-M’s affirmative action policies.

“I was so impressed with the sense that members of that committee understood that this was an important moment in history and how proud they were that the university was defending (itself against) the lawsuits,” Coleman said. “I just thought these are people I want to be with.”

Both leaders “stood up in a way that the head of other institutions have not,” said Luke Massie, national co-chair of the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary, or BAMN.

The fight began in 1997. Bollinger, a former U-M law professor with a degree from Columbia University School of Law, had just been named U-M’s 12th president. He got word that two lawsuits would soon be filed that would challenge both the university’s undergraduate admissions policy that awarded extra points to minority applicants and its law school policy.

Bollinger was fearful. Affirmative action was already under attack in the United States, he said. California voters had supported a ban on the use of race in admissions, and federal courts had struck down affirmative action policies at the University of Texas law school.

“It seemed like a tidal wave that began in the south in Texas, gathered momentum in California, and was now going to sweep across the country, eliminating really 30 to 40 years of accomplishment by higher education,” said Bollinger, who spoke to his wife Jean, an artist, about his concerns.

Coleman, then head of the University of Iowa, followed the cases closely. A graduate of Grinnell College and the University of North Carolina, where she earned her doctorate in biochemistry, Coleman had spent years in a field dominated by men. She knew firsthand the importance of diversity and worried about the possible consequences.

“Everyone was concerned,” said Coleman, who is married to Kenneth Coleman, a political scientist, and has one son.

As U-M waged its defense, taking its case to the outside world, Bollinger emerged as a national spokesman of sorts. The father of two met with politicians, corporate leaders and policy makers, asking for their support.

First, former President Ford got on board, then General Motors, then the military.

U-M General Counsel Marvin Krislov said outside support of U-M’s position from the private sector and other groups “absolutely” helped sway the court in its final decision. But it was Bollinger and Coleman, leading the U-M community, who really articulated Michigan’s position.

“Both of them were superb leaders in helping reach out to people throughout the country so that we could mount the best possible defense of our position,” Krislov said.

Today, both Coleman and Bollinger downplay their roles in the cases. Coleman said she was gratified just to be part of the experience, and Bollinger called himself “a bit player in a much larger historic theme.”

Still, “I really do believe that at the end of my life, I will look back and there was nothing more important,” Bollinger said.