Columbia University president resigns amid Gaza war protest backlash

Columbia University President Minouche Shafik resigned on Wednesday, nearly four months after the Ivy League university’s handling of campus protests over Israel’s war in Gaza was criticised by pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian sides alike.

“It has also been a period of turmoil where it has been difficult to overcome divergent views across our community,” Shafik said in an email to staff and students. “This period has taken a considerable toll on my family, as it has for others in our community.”

Shafik said her departure “at this point would best enable Columbia to traverse the challenges ahead.” She said she made the announcement so new leadership could be in place before the new term begins.

Columbia was rocked in April and May as protesters occupied parts of the Upper Manhattan campus in opposition to Palestinian civilian deaths in Gaza, resulting in hundreds of arrests. The demonstrators denounced Shafik for calling police onto campus to halt the demonstrations, while pro-Israel supporters castigated her for failing to crack down sufficiently.

Katrina Armstrong, Columbia’s executive vice president for health and biomedical services, will serve as the interim president, according to the university website.

Republican US Representative Elise Stefanik from upstate New York, who castigated Shafik and other university leaders in congressional hearings over Gaza protests nationwide, welcomed her resignation on X, saying it was “overdue” because of her failure to protect Jewish students.

Shafik, an Egyptian-born economist who holds British and US nationality, was previously deputy governor of the Bank of England, president of the London School of Economics and deputy managing director at the International Monetary Fund.

She became the 20th president of Columbia University in July 2023.

After protesters set up dozens of tents and demanded that the university sell its Israeli assets, university officials tried to negotiate an agreement with protesters on dismantling the camps.

As talks failed, Shafik on April 18 took the unusual step of asking New York police to enter the campus, angering many rights groups, students and faculty.

More than 100 people were arrested and the tents were removed from the main lawn, but within a few days, the encampment was back in place. The university called police back on April 30, when they arrested 300 people at Columbia and the City College of New York.

Shafik then asked police to stay until at least May 17 – two days after graduation – “to maintain order and ensure that encampments are not re-established.”

The current Gaza conflict was triggered on October 7 when Palestinian fighters from Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel’s subsequent assault on the Hamas-governed enclave has since killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.