adminColumbia University President Minouche Shafik is stepping down months after protests over the Israel-Hamas war gripped the campus, according to a letter sent by Shafik to the Columbia community obtained by CNN and confirmed by a university spokesperson.
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 on Wednesday 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.”
“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.
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.
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.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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