Columbia University President Minouche Shafik resigns months after Israel-Hamas war protests roiled campus
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Aug. 15, 2024, 12:43 AM UTC / Updated Aug. 15, 2024, 3:48 AM UTCBy Phil Helsel and Antonia Hylton
The president of Columbia University announced her resignation Wednesday after a little more than a year on the job, following months of criticism over protests on the Manhattan campus over the war in Gaza.
Nemat "Minouche" Shafik had been criticized by anti-war protesters and by House Republicans in Congress, but for different reasons.
In a letter to the Columbia community, Shafik said that while she was president "we have made progress in a number of important areas."
"However, it has also been a period of turmoil where it has been difficult to overcome divergent views across our community," she said. "This period has taken a considerable toll on my family, as it has for others in our community."
Shafik, an economist who became president of the Ivy League school in July 2023, asked the New York Police Department twice to clear encampments set up this spring by protesters in what demonstrators said was an act of solidarity with Palestinians.
After the first encampment on the Manhattan campus was cleared, a second one grew. Protesters took control of Hamilton Hall, and the NYPD cleared it and the encampment at the request of the university. In May, some students gathered outside Shafik's house to protest and scream, typically a ritual held during finals.
In April, Shafik appeared before a House committee and faced questions about her handling of antisemitism on campus.
The resignation is effective Wednesday, Shafik wrote in the letter.
"Over the summer, I have been able to reflect and have decided that my moving on at this point would best enable Columbia to traverse the challenges ahead," Shafik wrote. "I am making this announcement now so that new leadership can be in place before the new term begins."
Columbia's Board of Trustees said in a statement that it "regretfully accepts Minouche Shafik's decision to step down as president of the University."
A school leader with direct knowledge of the situation said the intense criticism and tension on campus amid the protests had become too much for Shafik to bear when it started to affect her family.
The person said they found the announcement unexpected despite the months of tensions at Columbia.
Katrina Armstrong was named interim president. She is CEO of the Columbia University Irving Medical Center and leads Columbia's health and biomedical sciences campus.
"With optimism and resolve, let us move forward together, embracing the opportunity to renew our vision and strengthen our community," Armstrong wrote in a letter about being named interim president.
The university was already anticipating a tough semester when classes resume next month, but it is now concerned about entering the new school year with new leadership who many faculty and students do not know, the school leader said.
Columbia will focus on developing plans to be "proactive instead of reactive" this semester in its response to the protest movement and any lingering tension between the school and its trustees, who see the campus as too left-leaning, the school leader said.
The student protest group Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine welcomed the resignation on X. It had called on Shafik to resign.
"After months of chanting 'Minouche Shafik you can't hide' she finally got the memo," the group said. "To be clear, any future president who does not pay heed to the Columbia student body's overwhelming demand for divestment will end up exactly as President Shafik did."
Protests erupted at college campuses across the U.S. following the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas against Israeli civilians, in which 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 hostages were taken, and during the subsequent war Israel launched against Hamas in Gaza. Since Oct. 7, over 39,900 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Many protest groups called for their schools to divest from financial support of Israel, including those at Columbia demonstrations.
Elisha Baker, a junior at Columbia and leader in its group of Jewish students, has said that he felt unsafe on campus during the protests. He called Shafik's resignation "big news," but added: "This is about the leadership and governance of Columbia University."
"The only thing that matters now is what happens next," Baker, 21, said in a phone interview Wednesday. "I hope that Interim President Armstrong will assert strong leadership to keep Jewish students and all students safe, and to restore the values and the integrity of Columbia."
Shafik wrote in the letter announcing her resignation that she holds as dear values that she said are Columbia's values, which include free speech, openness to new ideas "and zero tolerance for discrimination of any kind."
"Even as tension, division, and politicization have disrupted our campus over the last year, our core mission and values endure and will continue to guide us in meeting the challenges ahead," Shafik wrote.
"I have tried to navigate a path that upholds academic principles and treats everyone with fairness and compassion. It has been distressing — for the community, for me as president and on a personal level — to find myself, colleagues, and students the subject of threats and abuse," she wrote.
Heads of some universities became targeted by Republican lawmakers who alleged that demonstrations on college campuses were antisemitic.
University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill resigned in December after she was criticized by the White House, lawmakers and others after she appeared to dodge a question at a congressional hearing about campus antisemitism.
Harvard University's president, Claudine Gay, resigned around a month later, in early January.
Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., who had celebrated the earlier resignations, said in a statement Wednesday night: "Three down, so many to go."
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Quite a dilemma isn't it - free speech allowing intimidating antisemitism carried out by supporters of declared murdering terrorists, striking fear among Jewish students walking to school who have nothing to do with Israel. Somehow what's happening is making me think back to when black kids had to run the gauntlet to enter a school.
Welcome to America, all over again....
We can also use our right of free speech to shame bigotry. I'll take free speech over the government determining what speech is acceptable every time. After all, it wasn't too long ago that the bigotry depicted in your posted picture was government-sanctioned, with those who opposed it deemed "subversive".
Please do, as long as it may be effective. I'd like to see that being publicized more than the protests are.
I'm looking forward to seeing that as soon as schools open again.
I agree that there is a huge problem in American universities, though I disagree with your analogy.
The universities already made a determination on speech, but it wasn't based on violence or discrimination. It was based on ideology . The only people who were thought of as a danger were Conservative speakers. Anyone who identified as an oppressed group was given safe space and lots of freedom to protest. The antisemitism was actually being taught at the university and to top it off the US saw a dramatic increase in international students attending American universities:
The U.S. remains the top choice for students seeking higher education abroad. The country hosted more than a million international college students during the 2022-2023 academic year, according to data from the latest Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange.
The numbers mark an almost 12% jump from the previous year, and the fastest growth rate in more than 40 years.
International Student Numbers in U.S. Show Fastest Growth in 40 Years | Best Global Universities | U.S. News (usnews.com)
It was a very toxic mix.
For me it is simply a matter of the US government denying funds to universities that allow antisemitic protests or intimidation.
For some people it requires turning their heads to the left to see where the hate is coming from.
Whether or not any Pro -Palestine protests or demonstrations are antisemitic may be debatable, but as long as they are peaceful they go into the same category of free politics speech as other perhaps offensive but allowed expressions as Trump Rallies...
Students and university administrators have denied some free speech on campus for years.
Encampments and building takeovers aren’t free speech.
A google or microsoft bing search will show you pages of incidents of Jewish students being intimidated, even some physically attacked on the way into their schools. Here are just a couple of examples of the picture generally.
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Where is the line drawn between peaceful and intimidating/threatening?
No Buzz, the antisemitism came from the educated campus community, not backward southerners.
Those who are with the students and guiding them are not students but professional agitators and are funded by organizations, many connected to Hamas, and the image was not to identify specifically who the terrorizers were, but to indicate the need for the students to walk through and experience such hatred as they did back then.
I'm sure there are outside agitators and foreign students from the middle east and Iranian funded protestors involved, but there are also professors involved and don't think for one minute that some of those impressionable young minds haven't been infected.
I have to agree with you on that.
I think you mean ‘welcome to the democrats America again’.
I said America, not Americans.
Americans and everyone here legally IS America…..
I did not designate a particular political party.
There are damn good reasons approximately 80% of American Jews will vote Democratic for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz on November 5th. There are equally good reasons there are ten Jewish Democrats plus Bernie Sanders in the United States Senate and there are zero zip no nada MAGA republicans! American Jews are viscerally repulsed be the MAGAs, Trump and today's gop...
We are not electing President of Israel in America Nov. 5th!
Will Israel take Trump's klan In exile in Israel next year? No...
Saint Helena Awaits!
Any contention liberal American institutions and liberal American Democrat are some great threat to Israel and American Judaism and that the MAGA are their greatest supporters would get you laughed off in New York, The 2nd Jewish Capital in the World!
These guys aren't Democrats. They're Young MAGA Voters today.
You worded that correctly, cause Adolph Hitler was more Jewish than Bernie Sanders is. Not only did he refuse to attend Netanyahu's speech along with other Jew-haters, he thinks the USA should no longer contribute to Israel's defence. What I will be curious to see is if Harris' snub and siding with and promoting The Squad's progressivism causes a reduction in that 80%
I wouldn't vote for either Trump or Harris. I'd write Pogo's name in instead
I hope everyone here reads that.
Well done, Buzz.
Can't say I blame her. It was a no-win situation from day one.
Marched on campus during Nam. Felt sorry for the admin and profs.
Don’t feel too sorry for them, you helped end the war.
First nice thing you've ever said to me. Thanks.
You’ve more than earned it, cjcold.
Good riddance
Colleges should be places to learn not for continuous protesting and causing problems. The students who wanted to just take their classes were cheated.
So you don't remember being a teenager with a political attitude?
Yeah, but I didn't go around causing big problems because of it
In my way of thinking, political attitude is / was Parkland High School students taking on the gun lobbyists, challenging DC and encouraging boycotts of companies etc .. not taking over campuses and practicing bigoted intimidation spackled with a bit of violence.
My position is that I am not pleased with ANY OF THIS! People acquiring good jobs that empower their careers and livelihoods should not be taken down effectively by what is going on internationally. College presidents, even our national presidents, over the years have been 'afflicted' in the entirety of their presidencies by the issues of the day between Palestine and Israel. It's ruining lives unnecessarily, people. That ought not be.
I wish both the Palestinian and Israeli peoples (cousins even) the best in their complex local and regional matters . . . but for the love of God stop crippling (interfering in) U.S. electdion politics!
Putin has been interfering in US elections for decades.
None so obvious as 2016.