David Leebron

David Leebron
Official university portrait
7th President of Rice University
Term	2004 – present
Predecessor	S. Malcolm Gillis
Born	1956 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Alma mater	Harvard College (A.B.) Harvard Law School (J.D.)
Profession	Professor
Religion	Jewish
Spouse	Y. Ping Sun
Children	2
Website	Office of the President

David W. Leebron (born 1956) is the seventh president of Rice University. He has been a professor and dean of Columbia Law School, until he was named president of Rice University on July 1, 2004. Leebron is the first Jewish president of Rice University.

Biography

Born to Mr. and Mrs. Norman D. Leebron in 1956, David Leebron was reared in Philadelphia. An Eagle Scout, Leebron was influenced by a steady stream of exchange students in his house—from Europe, Japan and Mexico—to develop an interest in international affairs. He later traveled to Germany as an exchange student himself. He speaks excellent German.^[1]

Leebron earned a Bachelors, summa cum laude, in history and science from Harvard College in 1976, and his JD, magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1979, where he was president of the Harvard Law Review, notably working with the future Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.^[1]

After graduating from Harvard Law, Leebron clerked for Judge Shirley M. Hufstedler in Los Angeles at the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. He taught as a professor at the UCLA School of Law for a semester. Leebron then entered private practice from 1981 to 1983 as an associate at the New York firm Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. He then re-entered academia as a law professor at New York University and the director of NYU's International Legal Studies Program from 1983 to 1989. In 1989 he joined the faculty at Columbia Law School, where he became dean in 1996. He became President of Rice University in 2004. As a professor, he taught and published in areas of corporate finance, international economic law, human rights, privacy and torts. He was also a co-author of a textbook on human rights, though most recently has written about problems in international trade law. He is member of the New York State bar and, currently inactive, the Hawaii and Pennsylvania bars. He is on the Committee and the American Law Deans Association Board of Directors. He has served on the Association of American Law Schools Committee on Nominations. He is also a member of the American Law Institute (ex officio), the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Society of International Law, the board of directors of the IMAX Corporation and the editorial board of Foundation Press.^[1]

Columbia University under Leebron

As Dean of Columbia Law, Leebron roughly doubled the annual giving and the school's endowment, enhancing financial aid and support for students who enter public service. He was known for recruiting promising junior faculty and holding a strong commitment to diversity in academic positions.^[1]

However, as Dean of Columbia Law, Leebron faced conflict with the academic civil liberties group FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) concerning a criminal law examination given by Cardozo Professor of Jurisprudence, George P. Fletcher. The question, titled Revenge of the Big Monkey, posed a hypothetical question of an anti-fertility cult member named David who was hunting pregnant women and killing their fetuses. Gaye, David's last victim, had been unsuccessfully seeking an abortion and after the attack had told doctors that she wanted to write a thank you letter to her assailant. Students, faculty and Leebron himself noted how the question could potentially create a hostile environment and made light of violence towards women. However, others claimed that no matter the content, the exam was protected academic material. While there was no formal reprimand, there was a lack of support for professor Fletcher.^[2]

Rice University under Leebron

Leebron became the 7th President of Rice University ^[3] on June 1, 2004.

Under Leebron’s leadership, the campus has added two new residential colleges; the 10-story BioScience Research Collaborative, where scientists and educators from Rice and other Texas Medical Center institutions work together; a new recreation and wellness center; an additional food servery; a central campus pavilion that serves as a meeting and study place; an updated sports arena; a new physics building; and the Public Art Program, a presidential initiative that has added art across campus, although the University suffered a disappointing setback when merger talks between BCM and Rice stalled.

As president, Leebron has pushed the creation of a vision for the University, called the Vision for the Second Century.^[4] Leebron set forth a plan for expansion, calling for opinions from the Rice community.^[5] The vision calls for expanding the undergraduate body to around 3800, adding two more residential colleges and expanding the current ones. The new students will mostly come from outside Texas, while the number of Texas students hold steady at around 1300 students.

In November 2008, Leebron traveled to Iran as part of an academic tour sponsored by the Association of American Universities. On this four-day tour, he visited Sharif University, Iran's top engineering school, where he took part in an open question and answer session with Iranian students.^[6] Leebron compared his visit to the opening of relations with China during the 1970s.^[7]

References