Columbia University President Nemat Minouche Shafik resigned Wednesday night, following months of tensions over anti-Gaza war protests on campus. Shafik is the third president of an Ivy League center to resign following criticism of her handling of the protests and accusations of “anti-Semitism.” The presidents of Pennsylvania and Harvard resigned in December and January for similar reasons after reporting to the the Education and Labor Committee chaired by Republican Virginia Foxx. Shafik was also interviewed by Foxx in April.
“This has been a time of upheaval and the challenges of navigating differences of opinion within our community. “Over the summer, I have had a chance to reflect and have decided that my departure at this time would better position Columbia to meet the challenges ahead,” Shafik wrote in an email to students and faculty. In the email, he also stressed that his resignation is effective immediately. In a statement, the university’s Board of Trustees named Dean of Medicine Katrina A. Armstrong to replace Shafik.
Last April, Colombia has become the heart of pro-Palestinian camps that spread to the rest of the country. For weeks, students occupied the campus interior to demand an end to the war and for the university to cut all economic ties with companies with ties to Israel. The protests were labeled “anti-Semitic,” and prominent Republican Party figures called for Shafik’s resignation for not acting tough enough. One champion of the cause was speaker House Republican Mike Johnson, who showed up on campus and accused the chancellor of allowing the “virus of anti-Semitism” to spread on campus.
“We hope Chancellor Shafik’s resignation will serve as an example to other universities across the country that tolerating or protecting anti-Semitism is unacceptable and there will be consequences,” Johnson posted on X after the news broke. The Republican also praised Foxx’s work “whose probing questions have inspired a national backlash against leniency toward pro-Hamas radicals on campuses across the United States.”
In recent months, the university protests against the Gaza war have become the primary arena for Republicans to wage their culture war against progressive academic institutions. Criticism of the handling of the protests has also blurred the line between free speech and hate speech, creating debate where there was none before.
Rep. Foxx, who has been outspoken against diversity, equity, and equality (DEI) policies, has used accusations of anti-Semitism toward the protests to shine a spotlight on the progressive vanguard represented by campuses across the country. It’s not just the right to free speech on campus that’s at stake, but also the right to academic freedom.
Use of police violence
Shafik, who last year became the first woman to lead Columbia, has faced not only attacks from Republicans and Israeli lobbyists, but also criticism over her handling of the protests. The president has twice called for New York police to enter the campus to dismantle the encampment.
When the police intervened for the second and final time, a group of students had also locked themselves in Hamilton Hall, the same building that in 1968 had been occupied by protesters against the Vietnam War. Dozens of police officers stormed the campus in the middle of the night and arrested more than 200 people. In addition to resorting to police violence, the university also took disciplinary action against the students involved. Columbia's expulsion marked a new stage in the protests against the war in Gaza.
The disciplinary measures and the decision to use police to evict the camp have drawn sharp criticism from students and faculty. “Let's be clear, any future president who ignores the deafening demands for divestment [de Israel] “Any attempt by Columbia students will end in exactly the same way,” Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine, one of the organizations behind the camp, wrote in X.
Shafik's resignation comes just three weeks before the start of the semester, and after the Wall Street Journal publish the rector's plan to give more powers to campus security services so that they can arrest students who disrupt academic life. Currently, the 300 guards working in the center are prohibited from physically touching students. The plan worries both student associations and teachers.
Shafik leaves the university presidency without fully easing tensions over the protests, which are likely to flare up again as the war in Gaza continues. The conflict has already claimed the lives of more than 39,000 Palestinians in its ten months.