Ivy League Sports

Untitled Document

Cornell University President Jeffrey S. Lehman

Jeffrey S. Lehman took office as Cornell University's 11th president on July 1, 2003.

Lehman is the first alumnus to serve as president of the university, having earned his bachelor's degree from Cornell in 1977. Prior to his appointment, he was the dean of the University of Michigan Law School.

A native New Yorker, Lehman was born in Bronxville and grew up in White Plains and Bethesda, Md. As an undergraduate he majored in mathematics and graduated with distinction in all subjects. His extracurricular activities included active membership in the Alpha Phi Omega service fraternity and co-authorship of the book 1000 Ways to Win Monopoly Games. He earned two advanced degrees at the University of Michigan: a J.D. from the Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Michigan Law Review, and a master's degree in public policy from the Institute of Public Policy Studies.

Lehman served as law clerk to Chief Judge Frank M. Coffin of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and to Associate Justice John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court. He then practiced tax law with the Washington, D.C., law firm of Caplin & Drysdale. While there, he prepared an amicus curiae brief for the Supreme Court on behalf of 72 Nobel laureate scientists and 17 state academies of science. In that case, Edwards v. Aguillard, the Court struck down a Louisiana statute that forbade the teaching of evolution in public schools unless teachers gave comparable instruction in "creation science."

He joined the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School in 1987, teaching and publishing about issues of law and public policy, and developing a program of clinical education that offered students an opportunity to represent community organizations in economic development projects. A highly regarded scholar, he has been a visiting professor at the Yale Law School and the University of Paris. When he was named dean of the University of Michigan Law School in 1994, the National Law Journal hailed him as one of 40 "Rising Stars in the Law."

During his tenure as dean, Lehman attracted national media attention as a spokesperson in defense of the University of Michigan Law School's moderate approach to affirmative action in admissions. While explaining the policy to television, radio and newspaper audiences, he also helped shape the legal argument for universities' freedom to consider race as a limited factor in the admissions process, in order to achieve meaningful levels of racial integration. The Supreme Court's opinion affirming that policy, in Grutter v. Bollinger, is considered to be one of the most important decisions in the history of higher education.

Under Lehman's leadership, the University of Michigan Law School launched a range of successful initiatives in legal writing, public service, clinical education and transnational law. He served as president of the American Law Deans Association from 2001 to 2003.

Even while away, Lehman maintained strong loyalties to Cornell. At Michigan, he sometimes would be one of the few spectators wearing a Cornell sweatshirt at Wolverine football games. At Cornell, Lehman will have even more use for his Cornell sweatshirt since his son Jacob Lehman, a Cornell junior, coxes for the Big Red’s lightweight crew.