Lee Bollinger never planned to be an affirmative action champion.

After starting as the University of Michigan’s president in 1996, he was named in two Supreme Court cases — Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger — targeting the institution’s race-conscious admissions policies. Those historic lawsuits led to him becoming a prominent affirmative action supporter, and he defends the practice in his new book with Geoffrey R. Stone, “A Legacy of Discrimination: The Essential Constitutionality of Affirmative Action.”

“Higher education is one institution, one sector of society, among many that have tried to create a fairer, more just society and overcome the invidious discrimination of slavery and Jim Crow and policies that disadvantaged African Americans,” Bollinger told The 19th. Affirmative action has “been very important, very beneficial for society.”

Bollinger, Columbia University’s outgoing president, is one of many higher education leaders voicing support for affirmative action as the Supreme Court issued a consolidated decision Thursday in two cases — Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. University of North Carolina and Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College — that it is unconstitutional, reversing four decades of legal precedent.

Danielle Holley, outgoing dean of Howard University School of Law and incoming president of Mount Holyoke College, is also adamant that the Supreme Court decision will erode long-fought efforts to foster diversity on campuses.

“It’s very similar in some ways to the abortion decision last summer in which the Supreme Court essentially revolutionized our society in one fell swoop,” Holley said. “The Supreme Court wants a version of the United States in which we ignore people’s life history, what they bring to the table in terms of their ability to go back to their communities and improve those communities, what it means to have differing voices and different backgrounds on campus. It is a true step back for our country.”

Read the full article about the end of affirmative action by Nadra Nittle at The 19th.