Columbia University President Minouche Shafik resigned after campus unrest

The Ivy League school in upper Manhattan has been roiled this year by student demonstrations, culminating in scenes of police officers wearing riot shields and ties storming a building that had been occupied by pro-Palestinian protesters. Similar protests have swept college campuses across the country, many leading to violent clashes with police and thousands of arrests.

The announcement also comes days after the school confirmed that three deans resigned after officials said they exchanged derogatory texts during a campus discussion about Jewish life and anti-Semitism.

Shafik was also among university leaders called for questioning before Congress earlier this year. She was heavily criticized by Republicans who accused her of not doing enough to combat concerns about anti-Semitism on Columbia’s campus.

Shafik, who began his post last July, announced his resignation in a letter emailed to the university community just weeks before classes began on September 3. The university began restricting campus access to Columbia ID holders and registered guests on Monday. , saying he wants to reduce “potential disruption” as the new semester approaches.

In her letter, Shafik announced “progress in a number of important areas” but lamented that during her tenure it was “difficult to overcome divergent views in our community”.

“This period has had a considerable impact on my family, as it has on others in the community,” she wrote. “Over the summer, I was able to reflect and decided that moving on at this time would best allow Columbia to navigate the challenges ahead.”

Columbia’s board of trustees, meanwhile, announced that Katrina Armstrong, CEO of Columbia University Irving Medical Center, will serve as interim president.

“Challenging times present both the opportunity and the responsibility for serious leaders to emerge from every group and individual in a community,” said Armstrong, who is also the university’s executive vice president for Health and Biomedical Sciences. “As I enter this role, I am acutely aware of the challenges the University has faced over the past year.”

Pro-Palestinian protesters first set up tent camps on the Columbia campus during Shafik’s testimony to Congress in mid-April, where she denounced anti-Semitism but was criticized for her response to faculty and students accused of bias .

The school sent police to clear the tents the next day, only for the students to return and inspire a wave of similar protests on campuses across the country, with students demanding the schools cut financial ties to Israel and companies supporting the war.

As the protest continued for weeks, the school was thrust into the national spotlight. House Republican Speaker Mike Johnson came forward to denounce the camp, while Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez came out to support it.

Eventually, talks between the school and the protesters broke down, and as the school set a deadline for the activists to vacate, one group took over Hamilton Hall instead.

Even after the protests were quelled, Columbia decided to cancel its university-wide commencement ceremony, opting instead for a series of smaller ceremonies at the school.

The campus has been largely quiet this summer, but a conservative news outlet in June published images of what it said were text messages exchanged by administrators while participating in the May 31 discussion “Jewish Life on Campus: Past, present and future”.

The officials were removed from their posts, with Shafik saying in a July 8 letter to the school community that the messages were unprofessional and “disturbingly touched on ancient anti-Semitic tropes.”

Shafik’s critics were quick to applaud the end of her tenure, which is one of the shortest in the school’s history.

Johnson, the house spokesman, said her resignation was “long overdue” and should serve as a warning example to other university administrators that “tolerating or harboring anti-Semitism is unacceptable and will have consequences.”

The student group Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine wrote in a post on social media platform X that Shafik “finally got the memo” after months of protests. The campus chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace wrote that it “will not be reassured by her removal as the university’s crackdown on the pro-Palestinian student movement continues.”

Other top Ivy League leaders have resigned in recent months, largely over their response to volatile campus protests.

University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill resigned in December after less than two years on the job amid pressure from donors and criticism over testimony at a congressional hearing where she could not say under questioning repeated, that campus calls for Jewish genocide would violate the school’s conduct policy.

And in January, Harvard University President Claudine Gay resigned amid allegations of plagiarism and similar criticism of her testimony before Congress.

Shafik said he would return to the UK to lead an effort by the foreign secretary’s office to review the government’s approach to international development.

“I am very excited and appreciate that this will give me the opportunity to return to work to fight global poverty and promote sustainable development, areas of interest to me throughout my life,” she wrote.

Shafik was the first woman to take on the role, joining several women newly appointed to take the reins of Ivy League institutions.

The Egyptian-born economist previously headed the London School of Economics, but has largely made his mark outside academia, with roles at the World Bank, the UK Department for International Development, the International Monetary Fund and the Bank of England.

At the time of Shafik’s appointment, Columbia Board of Trustees Chairman Jonathan Lavine described her as a leader with an “unwavering belief in the vital role that institutions of higher education can and must play in solving the most complex problems of the world”.

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Associated Press reporter Jake Offenhartz in New York contributed to this story.