Columbia University President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik testifies before a House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing on “Columbia University’s Response to Antisemitism,” on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., April 17, 2024.
Ken Cedeno | Reuters
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 as well as by House Republicans in Congress, but for different reasons.
In a letter to the Columbia community, Shafik said 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 City Police Department twice to clear encampments set up this spring by protesters in what demonstrators said was an act of solidarity with Palestinians.
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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 April, Shafik appeared before a House committee where she 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.”
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 student protest group Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine welcomed the resignation in a post 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 United States following the Oct. 7 terror attacks by Hamas against Israeli civilians, and the subsequent war launched by Israel against Hamas in Gaza that has killed tens of thousands of people there.
Many protest groups called for their schools to divest from financial support of Israel, including those at Columbia demonstrations.
Shafik wrote in the letter announcing her resignation that she holds dear values which 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 being criticized by the White House, lawmakers and others after appearing to dodge a question at a congressional hearing on campus antisemitism.
Harvard University’s president, Claudine Gay, resigned around a month later, in early January.
Republican U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., who had celebrated the earlier resignations, issued a statement Wednesday night that said: “Three down, so many to go.”
