Rackham AmphitheaterUniversity of Michigan

Lee Bollinger, President, University of Michigan. Bollinger graduated from the Columbia Law School, where he was an articles editor of the Law Review. After serving as law clerk in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the United States Supreme Court, he joined the Law School at the University of Michigan in 1973. In 1987 he was named the Dean of the Law School. He left in 1994 to become Provost of Dartmouth College and Professor of Government and was named President of the University of Michigan in 1996. He is the author of two highly acclaimed contributions to First Amendment literature: Images of a Free Press (1991) and The Tolerant Society: Freedom of Speech and Extremist Speech in America (1986).

Gerald Boyd, Deputy Managing Editor, News, The New York Times. After a 10-year career at The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where he started as a copyboy and worked his way up to its White House correspondent, Gerald Boyd joined The New York Times to become one of two White House correspondents. In 1997 he became deputy managing editor, news, after having served as an assistant managing editor since 1993. Boyd, together with Soma Golden Behr, led the Times series “How Race Is Lived in America.”

Paul Delaney, Director, Center for the Study of Race and Media. After stints at several newspapers and working as a probation officer at the Atlanta Municipal Court from 1961 to 1963, Paul Delaney joined The New York Times in 1969. There he worked as correspondent, deputy national editor, bureau chief in Madrid, Spain, and senior editor. In 1992 he left for the University of Alabama where he served as chair of the Journalism Department. From 1996 to 1998 Delaney was the editorial page editor of Our World News. Since 1999 Delaney has been the director of the Center for the Study of Race and Media at Howard University. He is also a founding member of the National Association of Black Journalists.

Charles R. Eisendrath, Director, Michigan Journalism Fellows. Eisendrath directs two national programs for working journalists at the University of Michigan. The Michigan Journalism Fellows provides customized mid-career study. The Livingston Awards for Young Journalists are the nation’s largest all-media reporting prizes. A former Time magazine Washington and foreign correspondent, Eisendrath has contributed frequent journalism and commentary in the national media.

Soma Golden Behr, Assistant Managing Editor, The New York Times. Soma Golden Behr worked for 11 years at Business Week where she eventually became the magazine’s chief economics writer in Washington before joining The New York Times in 1973 as an economics reporter. In the years following she served as a member of the editorial board, editor of the Sunday business section and national news editor before she was named assistant managing editor in 1993. Together with Gerald Boyd, Soma Golden Behr led the New York Times series “How Race Is Lived in America.”

David Halberstam, Author. At the age of 30, Halberstam was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on Vietnam. His latest book, The Children (1998), chronicles the lives of eight young civil rights activists he met in 1960 as a reporter in the South. Other books include Walking With The Wind, The Best And The Brightest and The Fifties, which served as the basis for an eight-part series broadcast on The History Channel in 1997. Halberstam received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the University of Michigan in 2000.

Amy Harmon, Technology Correspondent, The New York Times. Harmon has been a technology correspondent since joining The New York Times in 1997, first in the Los Angeles bureau and now in New York. Previously she served as a reporter at The Los Angeles Times for seven years. Her article “A Limited Partnership” about the relationship between a Black Internet entrepreneur and his business partner, who is white, appeared as part of the Times’ race series in June.

Earl Lewis, Dean, the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies, University of Michigan. With a doctoral degree in American and African history, Lewis went to the University of California at Berkeley in 1984 where he taught Afro-American Studies. Since arriving at the University of Michigan in 1989 he has taught in both the History Department and the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies (CAAS), where he served as director from 1990-93. In 1997 Lewis was named Interim Dean of the Rackham Graduate School. He was appointed Dean and Vice Provost in March 1998. He just finished writing his latest book with Dr. Heidi Ardizzone about the marriage of Leonard Rhinelander and Alice Jones.

Bob McGruder, Executive Editor, The Detroit Free Press. After serving in the army in Washington, D.C., for two years, McGruder spent 20 years at The Cleveland Plain Dealer where he started covering city government and politics and left as managing editor. In 1986 McGruder joined The Detroit Free Press as deputy managing editor. He also served as managing editor, news and managing editor, before being named executive editor in January 1996.

Moses Newson, Author, Public Affairs Specialist, City Editor. After serving in the U.S. Navy and graduating form Lincoln University in Missouri, Newson was the city editor of The Tri-State Defender in Memphis, Tennessee. In 1957 he joined the Afro-American Newspapers in Baltimore where he served as a reporter, city editor and executive editor. He left in 1978 to become public affairs specialist for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C. After retiring in 1995 he co-authored the book Fighting for Fairness: The Life Story of Hall of Fame Sportswriter Sam Lacy. As a newsman Newson covered the Emmett Till trial in Mississippi, desegregation in Clinton, Tenn., the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, the original CORE Freedom Ride and the aftermaths of civil war in Nigeria, South Africa and Cuba.

Clarence Page, Columnist and Editorial Board Member, The Chicago Tribune. In addition to staff assignments with The Chicago Tribune and a column nationally syndicated to more than 120 newspapers, Clarence Page is a regular panelist on The McLaughlin Group and Black Entertainment Television’s Lead Story. His commentary can be seen and heard on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday. Page’s book of autobiographical essays on race relations was published in 1996 by Harper-Collins with the title Showing My Color.

Eugene Roberts, Chairman of IPI, Professor at the University of Maryland. After several years as a labor writer and then the metropolitan editor for The Detroit Free Press, Roberts joined the staff of The New York Times in 1965 where he first headed the paper’s coverage of the civil rights movement in the South and then served as its chief war correspondent in Vietnam. After 18 years as executive editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, he became Professor of Journalism at the University of Maryland. He took a leave of absence in 1994 to return to The New York Times as its managing editor and returned to his professorship at Maryland in 1998. Roberts received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Michigan in 1997.

Kevin Sack, Southern Bureau Chief, The New York Times. Based in Atlanta since 1995, Sack has covered a broad range of stories with a particular focus on race and politics. He has worked at The New York Times since 1989, serving as Albany bureau chief and as a metropolitan correspondent. Before that Sack was for eight years a reporter at The Atlanta Constitution. His article “Shared Prayers, Mixed Blessings,” about an integrated church in Decatur, Georgia, was the leadoff story for the Times’ race series in June.

John Seigenthaler, Founder, The Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University. Seigenthaler served for 43 years as an award-winning journalist for The Tennessean, Nashville’s morning newspaper, starting as a cub reporter and retiring as editor, publisher and CEO of the paper. In 1982, Seigenthaler became founding editorial director of USA Today. He left newspapers in 1991 to found The First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt with the mission of creating national discussion, dialogue and debate about First Amendment values.

Roger Wilkins, Professor of History and American Culture, George Mason University. After being in private law practice, Wilkins became the Assistant Attorney General of the United States in the Justice Department. In 1972 Wilkins started his journalistic career as a member of the editorial page staff at The Washington Post. He joined The New York Times as a member of the editorial board in 1974 and in 1980 moved to the Washington Star as associate editor, working as a network radio commentator for NBC News at the same time. Wilkins has been at George Mason since 1988. He began commentary for NPR in 1990.

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