Lee Bollinger always had a celebrity streak. The Columbia University president who is now toasted as an unabashed champion of free speech - or else abhorred as the latest to embody Ivy League arrogance that never really seems to fade - got his first taste of the national spotlight while serving as president right here at the University of Michigan.

The University's two affirmative action cases that came before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003 named Bollinger as the sole defendant (though he had already left Michigan for Columbia). Those cases came to be the rallying point for all major American universities that believed in the use of affirmative action to achieve diversity. Although the ultimate decisions were split, the University was seen as an unwavering defender of racial diversity in academia.

For Bollinger, the Columbia trained lawyer and First Amendment scholar, affirmative action was naturally his fight. And he fought it more actively than most other presidents would have. What really separates Bollinger, however, is that he never stopped fighting. He has remained outspoken on hot-button issues affecting college campuses and American society as a whole. Beloved for his enthusiasm (as shown by the loud ovation he received, even amid protesters, as he stepped up to speak before Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday), he is also often criticized, even at his own campus, for sometimes picking the wrong fight and going too far.

For most who have followed Bollinger since his time at Michigan, it was no shock to find his name and strong sentiments in the center of a full-page ad in The New York Times on Aug. 8. Writing on behalf of the nearly 300 university presidents who co-signed the statement, Bollinger was blunt and direct in his criticism of the vote by Britain's University and College Union to boycott Israeli institutions and academics.

"We will not hold intellectual exchange hostage to the political disagreements of the moment," Bollinger wrote. With nearly all of American academia and probably an overwhelming majority of public opinion behind him in that context, however, that statement was hardly intrepid.

Not even two months later, the winds shifted considerably. To his credit, Bollinger stayed true to his course. Bucking everything from criticism to slander to downright character assassination, Bollinger backed up the words he wrote in that ad. He proved that, at least in him, there is a genuine desire for open debate and contested disagreement to counter-act the stifling nature of sociopolitical discourse in America and abroad over the past few years.

Ahmadinejad spoke his ignorant diatribes, Bollinger and others skewered him mercilessly and Columbia University is a more open place today than it was last week. To say that this is a fine example for other university presidents to follow is a gross understatement; serving as platforms for opinions that matter in the world, regardless of how inflammatory they might be, is one of the main purposes of institutions of higher learning.

Unfortunately, many institutions have forgotten this role, especially since Sept. 11. Most, like our own university, would never deny that it is their role to sometimes host unpopular viewpoints, but few have been assertive in creating that discourse. Dialogue isn't something that simply happens: It must be actively facilitated.

The problem of stifled debate is even larger outside of academia. The Bush administration's refusal to talk to certain governments, supposedly as punishment for their actions, has led to a more polarized and misunderstood world. Our leaders fail to realize that you can't get rid of rogue governments by pretending they don't exist. We must talk to them because they control a piece of our world.

We need people like Bollinger in government and international affairs. It's not such a crazy thought; it's certainly been done before.

Perhaps it's no surprise that the most hopelessly idealistic president in history, Woodrow Wilson, was first and foremost an academic. A professor at Bryn Mawr College and Wesleyan University, Wilson served as president of Princeton University from 1902-1910 before moving on to politics. His record certainly isn't squeaky clean, but Wilson's idealism spawned a whole school of thought in international relations. His leadership in World War I was measured and sure: His ideal of world peace through democracy and the League of Nations remains our goal today.