Columbia University president resigns after Gaza protests turmoil
Columbia University President Minouche Shafik has stepped down, just four months after the university faced intense campus protests over the war in Gaza.
Ms. Shafik’s resignation comes only a year after assuming her role at the private Ivy League institution in New York City, with the autumn semester just weeks away.
She becomes the third Ivy League president to resign over their handling of Gaza war demonstrations.
In April, Ms. Shafik authorized the New York Police Department to intervene on campus, resulting in the arrest of about 100 students occupying a university building. This marked the first large-scale arrests on Columbia’s campus since the Vietnam War protests more than 50 years ago.
The decision intensified protests at numerous colleges across the U.S. and Canada.
In an email to students and faculty on Wednesday, Ms. Shafik acknowledged the challenges of leading through a “period of turmoil,” citing the strain on her family and the broader community.
“This period has taken a significant toll on my family, as it has on others in our community,” she wrote.
Katrina Armstrong, CEO of Columbia University Irving Medical Center, will serve as interim president.
Reflecting over the summer, Ms. Shafik said, “I have decided that moving on at this point would best enable Columbia to navigate the challenges ahead.” She emphasized her efforts to balance academic values with fairness and compassion, though she admitted that the situation had been distressing for herself, her colleagues, and students.
Campus protests over Israel’s actions in its war with Hamas have raised difficult questions for university leaders, as tensions surrounding the conflict have sparked volatile debates across U.S. colleges since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, followed by Israel’s retaliation in Gaza.
The leaders of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology all testified before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
The presidents of Harvard and UPenn ultimately resigned amid backlash over their handling of campus protests and congressional testimony, including their refusal to say that calling for the deaths of Jews could violate university policy.
In April, Ms Shafik defended her institution’s efforts to tackle antisemitism to Congress, saying that there had been a rise in such hatred on campus and that the college was working to protect students.
Ms Shafik is a highly respected Egyptian-born economist who formerly worked for the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Bank of England.
She also previously served as president of the London School of Economics.
Ms Shafik, who received a damehood in 2015, was previously considered to be on the shortlist for the Bank of England governor, the BBC reported in 2019.
Her letter adds that she has been asked by the UK Foreign Secretary to lead a “review of the government’s approach to international development and how to improve capability”.
The decision, she wrote, “enables me to return to the House of Lords and to reengage with the important legislative agenda put forth by the new UK government”.
Her resignation comes after three Columbia University deans also resigned last week, after text messages showed the group used “antisemitic tropes”, according to a statement by Ms. Shafik, while discussing Jewish students.
The text exchanges were originally published by the Republican-led House Committee on Education and the Workforce in early July.
Congresswoman Virginia Foxx, the chairwoman of the congressional committee, praised the decision by the three administrators to resign.
“About time. Actions have consequences,” she said in a statement last Thursday, adding that the decision should have been made “months ago”.
“Instead, the University continues to send mixed signals,” she continued, adding that the administration is allowing a dean who has not resigned to “slide under the radar with no real consequences”.
Universities around the US are preparing for the academic year to begin in the next several weeks, as the conflict in Gaza continues.
On Tuesday, a judge in California ruled that UCLA – which saw violent protests break out on campus in May – must prevent protesters from blocking Jewish students from campus facilities.
Judge Mark Scarsi ruled that protesters had “established checkpoints and required passers-by to wear a specific wristband to cross them”, and blocking “people who supported the existence of the state of Israel”.
“Jewish students were excluded from portions of the UCLA campus because they refused to denounce their faith,” Judge Scarsi wrote in the order. “This fact is so unimaginable and so abhorrent to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom that it bears repeating.”
The university has blamed outside agitators for the checkpoints and said it objected to the ruling.
Hamas-led gunmen killed about 1,200 people in an attack on Israel on 7 October, taking 251 others back to Gaza as hostages.
That attack triggered a massive Israeli military offensive against Gaza and the current war.
At least 39,897 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli campaign, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.
