CNN —
Columbia University President Minouche Shafik is stepping down, months after protests against the war between Israel and Hamas engulfed the campus, according to a letter Shafik sent to the Columbia community, obtained by CNN and confirmed by a university spokesperson.
Shafik, an Egyptian-born economist, former senior official at the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and Bank of England, and former president of the London School of Economics, has faced pressure over his response to an encampment on the Columbia University campus protesting Israel’s war with Hamas.
In his letter on Wednesday, Shafik said progress had been made during his tenure but that it had also been a “tumultuous period in which it was difficult to overcome differing opinions within the community.”
“This period has placed an enormous strain on my family, as well as others in our community,” Shafik said in the letter. “I have had time to reflect over the summer and have decided that my stepping down at this time will best position Columbia University to navigate the challenges ahead.”
“I have striven to uphold academic principles and to tread a path that treats all people fairly and with compassion. It has been painful for the community, for me as chancellor and personally to see myself, my colleagues and my students being subject to threats and abuse,” Shafik said.
The Ivy League school has named Katrina Armstrong as interim president, according to its website.
Shafik has come under fire for his response to campus protests over the war between Israel and Hamas. Ahead of the university-wide graduation ceremony scheduled for May 15, Shafik assembled a team of university leaders to negotiate with representatives of the “Gaza solidarity camp” on campus. However, they were unable to reach a solution that would see students leave the camp on the university’s lawn, where Columbia’s graduation ceremony is traditionally held, Shafik said in a statement on April 29.
After talks broke down, Columbia students and unaffiliated individuals entered Hamilton Hall, the campus’s main academic building, and barricaded themselves inside, prompting Shafik on April 30 to request assistance from the NYPD to remove protesters who had occupied buildings in addition to the campsite.
The NYPD announced that it had arrested a total of about 300 protesters that night at Columbia University and the neighboring City College. Shafik also urged the NYPD to remain on campus until at least May 17 to “maintain order and prevent encampments from re-establishing,” he wrote in a letter to the NYPD dated April 30.
In his May 1 letter, Shafik said the “rapid escalation” at Hamilton Hall had “pushed the university to the brink.”
“[S]”The actions of students and outside activists breaking down the doors of Hamilton Hall, abusing public safety and maintenance staff, and damaging property are acts of vandalism, not political statements,” she said. “I am deeply saddened by what has happened, and I believe I speak for many members of our community in saying we regret that this has occurred.”
The arrests came the day after the camp was set up on April 17 and about a week after Governor Shafik gave the NYPD the authority to arrest more than 100 protesters on preliminary charges of trespass.
That same day, Shafik testified before the House Education Committee about the university’s response to anti-Semitism. He told lawmakers he condemned comments by several professors in support of the Hamas attacks on October 7 that resulted in at least one professor, Mohammed Abdou, being fired at the end of the semester.
Shafik reportedly prepared for months to testify in an attempt to avoid the fate of two other Ivy League presidents, Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, who resigned after disastrous December congressional hearings on anti-Semitism. Shafik also told lawmakers that calling for the genocide of Jews violates the university’s code of conduct, but that the former presidents of Harvard and Pennsylvania did not.
But several lawmakers found her response insufficient and questioned why more decisive and appropriate action had not been taken against professors and students allegedly involved in anti-Semitic acts.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
