Joe McConnell
Columbia University President Minouche Shafik has resigned from her post amid a free speech debate over the university’s protests over the war in Gaza.
Ms. Shafik’s resignation comes just a year after taking the job at the private Ivy League university in New York City and just weeks before the start of the fall semester.
Ms. Shafik is now the third president of an Ivy League university to resign over her handling of the anti-war protests in Gaza.
In April, Ms. Shafik authorized New York Police Department officers to raid the campus, a controversial decision that led to the arrest of about 100 students who were occupying a university building.
The incident marked the first time mass arrests have occurred on Columbia’s campus since protests against the Vietnam War more than five decades ago.
The move sparked protests at dozens of colleges across the United States and Canada.
In an email sent to students and faculty on Wednesday, Professor Shafik wrote that she had overseen a “turbulent time in which it was difficult to overcome the divergent opinions within our community.”
“This time has had a significant impact on my family, as well as others in our community.”
Katrina Armstrong, CEO of Columbia University Irving Medical Center, will serve as interim president.
“Over the summer, I reflected and decided that moving forward at this point would best position Columbia to address the challenges that lie ahead,” Ms. Shafik wrote in her letter.
“I have tried to follow a path that upholds academic principles and treats everyone with fairness and compassion,” he continued.
“It has been distressing, for the community, for me as president, and on a personal level, to find out that I, my colleagues, and my students have been subjected to threats and abuse.”
Student anger over the way Israel is fighting its war against Hamas has raised thorny questions for university leaders, already grappling with heated campus debates about what is happening in the Middle East.
U.S. college campuses have been at the center of protests against the Gaza war since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 and Israel’s subsequent incursion into the Palestinian Gaza Strip.
Leaders from Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology testified before the House Education and Labor Committee.
The presidents of Harvard and UPenn eventually resigned amid backlash over their handling of campus protests and congressional testimony, including their refusal to say that calling for the death of Jews might violate university policy.
In April, Ms. Shafik defended her institution’s efforts to counter anti-Semitism before Congress, saying there had been a rise in such hatred on campus and that the institution was working to protect students.
Ms Shafik is a respected economist of Egyptian origin who previously worked for the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Bank of England.
She was also previously President of the London School of Economics.
Ms Shafik, who was made a dame in 2015, had previously been considered for the post of governor of the Bank of England, the BBC reported in 2019.
The letter adds that the UK Foreign Secretary has asked her to lead a “review of the Government’s approach to international development and how to improve its capabilities”.
The decision, he wrote, “allows me to return to the House of Lords and resume work on the important legislative programme put forward by the new UK Government.”
His resignation comes after three deans at Columbia University also resigned last week after text messages showed the group used “anti-Semitic edits” when talking about Jewish students.
The text exchanges were originally released by the Republican-led House Education and Workforce Committee in early July.
Representative Virginia Foxx, chair of the congressional committee, praised the three administrators’ decision to resign.
“It’s about time. Actions have consequences,” he said in a statement late Thursday, adding that the decision should have been made “months ago.”
“Instead, the University continues to send mixed signals,” he continued, adding that the administration is allowing a dean who has not resigned to “go unnoticed without real consequences.”
As the conflict in Gaza continues, universities across the United States are preparing for the start of the academic year in the coming weeks.
A California judge ruled Tuesday that UCLA, where violent campus protests erupted in May, must stop demonstrators from blocking Jewish students from campus facilities.
Judge Mark Scarsi ruled that protesters had “set up checkpoints and required passers-by to wear a specific bracelet to pass through them,” blocking “people who advocate for the existence of the State of Israel.”
“Jewish students have been barred from parts of the UCLA campus because they refused to renounce their faith,” Judge Scarsi wrote in the order. “This is so unimaginable and so abhorrent to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom that it bears repeating.”
The university blamed the roadblocks on outside agitators and said it opposed the ruling.
On October 7, in an attack on Israel, Hamas-led gunmen killed around 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage in Gaza.
That attack triggered a massive Israeli military offensive against Gaza and the current war.
According to Gaza’s Hamas-led Health Ministry, at least 39,897 Palestinians have been killed during the Israeli campaign.
