Columbia President Minouche Shafik steps down months after protests over Israel-Hamas war gripped campus

(CNN) — Columbia University President Minouche Shafik is stepping down months after protests over the Israel-Hamas war gripped the campus, Shafik announced in a letter sent Wednesday to the Columbia community.

Shafik — an Egyptian-born economist and former high-ranking official at the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and Bank of England, and former president of the London School of Economics — has faced pressure for her handling of Columbia campus encampments protesting the war between Israel and Hamas.

Shafik in her letter cited progress during her tenure but said it has “also been a period of turmoil where it has been difficult to overcome divergent views across our community.”

“This period has taken a considerable toll on my family, as it has for others in our community,” Shafik said 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.”

Pressure was building for Shafik to step down after months of student-led demonstrations at the school’s New York campus that spread to colleges across the country. Shafik came under criticism after authorizing arrests on campus and for her testimony to the House Education Committee over the university’s handling of antisemitism.

“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,” Shafik said.

The Ivy League listed Katrina Armstrong as interim president, according to the university’s website. Armstrong, a doctor of medicine, has served as executive vice president for the health and biomedical sciences department at Columbia and chief executive officer of the medical campus.

Shafik says she’ll be working with Armstrong “to ensure an orderly transition.”

“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’s letter said.

Armstrong said in a letter to the university community that she is “deeply honored” to begin her new role just 20 days before the fall semester starts.

“As I step into this role, I am acutely aware of the trials the University has faced over the past year. We should neither understate their significance, nor allow them to define who we are and what we will become,” Armstrong said. “The familiar excitement and promise of a new academic year are informed this year by the presence of change and continuing concerns, but also by the immense opportunity to look forward, to join together for the laudable mission we are here to serve, and to become our best selves individually and institutionally.”

The Columbia Board of Trustees said in a letter that it has “regretfully” accepted Shafik’s decision to step down as president and praised the contributions she has made to the university community, even during a “difficult year.” The board went on to endorse Armstrong, saying her leadership and experience will help the university with its challenges.

“We believe that Katrina is the right leader for this moment. We are grateful to her for stepping in, and we call on our community to support her,” the board said.

Shafik is stepping down a week after the resignations of three Columbia University deans who were permanently removed from their posts earlier this summer after the university’s president said they engaged in “very troubling” text messages that “touched on antisemitic tropes.” The deans, Susan Chang-Kim, Cristen Kromm and Matthew Patashnick, were removed from power in July after their actions during a May 31 panel discussion about Jewish life at an alumni event.

In her next role, Shafik will be working with the UK’s Foreign Secretary “to chair a review of the government’s approach to international development and how to improve capability,” according to her letter.

Criticism over campus protests

Shafik came under criticism for her handling of protests on campus over the Israel-Hamas war. Leading up to the university-wide commencement set to take place on May 15, Shafik enlisted a team of academic leaders to negotiate with representatives from the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on campus. However, they failed to come to a resolution that would result in students leaving the encampment on a university lawn where Columbia commencement ceremonies traditionally occur, Shafik announced in a statement on April 29.

After the talks broke down, students as well as people unaffiliated with Columbia broke into Hamilton Hall, a main academic building on campus, and barricaded themselves inside. That prompted Shafik to request the New York Police Department’s assistance on April 30 to remove protesters that occupied the building in addition to the encampment.

In total, the NYPD said it arrested around 300 protesters that night at Columbia and neighboring City College. Shafik also requested the NYPD stay on campus through at least May 17 “to maintain order and ensure encampments are not reestablished,” she said in her April 30 letter to the NYPD.

The “drastic escalation” at Hamilton Hall “pushed the University to the brink,” Shafik said in a May 1 letter.

“[S]tudents and outside activists breaking Hamilton Hall doors, mistreating our Public Safety officers and maintenance staff, and damaging property are acts of destruction, not political speech,” she said. “I know I speak for many members of our community in saying that this turn of events has filled me with deep sadness. I am sorry we reached this point.”

The arrests came around a week after Shafik initially authorized the NYPD to arrest more than 100 protesters on a preliminary charge of criminal trespass a day after the encampment was launched on April 17.

That day Shafik testified before the House Education Committee over the university’s handling of antisemitism. Shafik told lawmakers she condemned several professors’ statements made in support of Hamas’ October 7 attack, resulting in the firing of at least one professor, Mohamed Abdou, at the conclusion of the semester.

Republican US Rep. Virginia Foxx, Education and the Workforce Committee chairwoman, said Columbia’s next leader “must take bold action to address the pervasive antisemitism, support for terrorism, and contempt for the university’s rules that have been allowed to flourish on its campus.”

“During Shafik’s presidency, a disturbing wave of antisemitic harassment, discrimination, and disorder engulfed Columbia university’s campus. Jewish students and faculty have been mocked, harassed, and assaulted simply for their identity,” Foxx said in a statement. “Every student has the right to a safe learning environment. Period. Yet, flagrant violations of the law and the university rules went unpunished.”

In an effort to avoid the fates of two other Ivy League presidents at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, who resigned after their disastrous December congressional hearing on antisemitism, Shafik reportedly prepared for months for her testimony. She also told lawmakers that calls for the genocide of Jews violate the university’s code of conduct, which Harvard and UPenn’s former presidents did not.

However, several lawmakers found her responses insufficient and pressed her on why more decisive and timely actions weren’t taken against professors as well as students who allegedly partook in acts of antisemitism.

Republican US Rep. Elise Stefanik, a member of the committee who had previously called for Shafik’s removal, said “it was only a matter of time” before Shafik resigned.

“After failing to protect Jewish students and negotiating with pro-Hamas terrorists, this forced resignation is long overdue,” Stefanik said in a statement. “We will continue to demand moral clarity, condemnation of antisemitism, protection of Jewish students and faculty, and stronger leadership from American higher education institutions.”

Shafik-authorized campus arrests drew rebuke from faculty

Shafik’s decision to authorize arrests came under fire from university faculty who staged a walkout in support of students’ rights to peacefully protest after the first round of arrests.

After the second round of arrests, Nadia L. Abu El-Haj, a professor of anthropology at Columbia, criticized Shafik for allegedly not allowing faculty members to step in and try to deescalate the situation before bringing police into the campus.

Columbia University members of the American Association of University Professors also drafted a censure motion alleging Shafik violated “the fundamental requirements of academic freedom” and launched an “unprecedented assault on students’ rights.”

People opposing the encampments, particularly Jewish and pro-Israel students and faculty, urged the university to disband the encampments. In doing so, they cited several instances where some protesters had called for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish and pro-Israel students and faculty.

Ahead of Passover, a rabbi linked to the Ivy League school urged Jewish students to leave campus and remain elsewhere for the rest of the semester. Shortly after, Shafik announced main campus classes would be hybrid until the semester ends.

The encampment students launched at Columbia quickly sparked a movement at college campuses across the country and across the globe.

Like Shafik, university presidents struggled to find a balance between protecting students’ freedom to protest and ensuring the safety of all students. Many have said that student-run protests on campuses were predominantly peaceful and that outside agitators were fueling the unrest.

Nevertheless, several university presidents — including at New York University, Yale, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Southern California — authorized the arrests both of students and faculty at the time.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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