By Carol Tannenhauser
“I write with sadness to tell you that I am stepping down as president of Columbia University effective August 14, 2024.”
With those words, Nemat (Minouche) Shafik, who became Columbia’s first female president a little more than a year ago, resigned on Wednesday in a letter to the university’s community.
The timing of her resignation is surprising, given the imminent start of the school year, but, in retrospect, Shafik’s departure has an air of inevitability, given the degree of criticism she has faced from all sides about her handling of the pro-Palestinian protests that shook Columbia last spring and echoed across the nation.
For a while it seemed that Shafik had survived the turmoil, but, as she wrote in her letter, “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. 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 am making this announcement now so that new leadership can be in place before the new term begins.”
The interim leader of Columbia will be Dr. Katrina A. Armstrong, “a medical doctor who has been the chief executive of Columbia’s medical center and dean of its medical school since 2022,” wrote The New York Times in its coverage of Shafik’s resignation, which you can read in full here.
West Side Rag will be reporting from the campus about reactions to these developments as they come in. Meanwhile, you can read a biography of Minouche Shafik, which appeared in the Rag when she arrived at Columbia, here.
Shafik told the Times that she would be taking a job with Britain’s foreign secretary to lead a review of the government’s approach to international development.
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I just read her bio. To say the school was lucky to have her is an overstatement. And so is saying that the bratty students do. not deserve her. I wish her the best of luck.
After the flour massacre radicalized students in the spring I doubt students will ever stop protesting in support of Palestine. It will be an interesting fall semester regardless of who is in charge of the university. Netanyahu has doubled down over the summer and alienated even more people that were in support of bringing the hostages home. Ugly stuff all around.
Schools like Columbia used to be independent but they became too dependent on donor money and that dependence has led to donors having way too much say in the schools affairs. As a Columbia Alum and former parent thus news is disheartening.
Of course donors should have a say in the affairs of the school…if not them, who? Especially since higher “education” (and certainly the Ivies) have been hijacked by the far left. Hopefully the new President will create an environment that welcomes students along the entire political spectrum.
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. What she permitted in her “backyard” was an abomination. Setting up encampments and refusal to obey a lawful order to disperse was a crime. Yet she permitted it to persist, and even negotiated with the trespassers. Terrible example to set.
I live relatively near the campus. The night the NYPD was finally asked to move in, a friend texted me to share how surprised she was that it “escalated quickly. ” I said I’m not–this is what weak leadership does. Shafik told them to leave, they didn’t, and then there were no consequences for days on end, essentially handing the students the opportunity to whine on TV when the consequences (being arrested with…..plastic zip ties, the horror) suddenly appeared after all
Columbia needs to refocus on academics and research, and not on activism and world politics. There is nothing a university can do about a war in the Mideast.
What we can do is acknowledge that Muslims who work on the UWS or live on the UWS who are not involved with Palestinian protests are not Hamas and deserve to feel welcome on the UWS and our community leaders really do not even want to do that.
Well stated.
I would translate Baroness Shafik’s statement as “who needs this? I’m going back to Britain”, and one can hardly blame her. But what’s next? The self-defeating left seems to be planning more nonsense and the manipulative billionaires and the right are doing the same. There should be a juste milieu at Columbia where the legitimate grievances of the Palestinians could be ventilated and analyzed and debated, and where Israel advocates could advocate what they want, without slinging “antisemitism” accusations. But that seems to be to much to hope for. What a shame. Let’s hope the left keeps some sort of strategic sanity, although I suspect they are more likely to contribute to electing Trump than really to help the Palestinians at the Democratic Convention.
Good riddance. Hopefully the new leadership will allow students the opportunity to study in the safe, peaceful environment they deserve.
I only know what I’ve read in the press, from the NYT and Columbia Spectator as well as WSR and other local outlets. I don’t know off the top of my head how a new president is going to function when howls of rage and calls for her/his ouster spring up from one “side” or the other, or from both sides simultaneously, over almost any course of action. I think Republican politicians want to hobble free thought and speech in universities because they see universities, esp. private ones, as breeding grounds of “Kulturbolschewismus.” So I don’t think a new president should knuckle under to Stefanik or Foxx or other inquisitors. AND I hope that a new leadership will secure the peace of the university campus so that its mission can be carried out. A university’s mission does not include providing “safe space” for continuous disruption over external political issues. And if you attend Columbia but cannot tolerate how it invests its endowment, then withdrawal and go somewhere else.
The Left has been the party responsible for hobbling free thought and speech at universities for decades. From complete ideological conformity among administrators and professors (95%+are self-identified left-wing), to dis-inviting and shouting down conservative speakers, the left has dismantled the core principles for which universities stand.
You don’t believe in free speech, you believe that people shouldn’t be allowed to disagree with *your* speech where you can hear it, even in public spaces. Your 95% number is made up, but demanding that universities impose genuinely irrelevant political tests on hiring (this math professor is a better scholar, but this one is a conservative–better hire him to change those numbers!) is utterly remote from the goals of free intellectual inquiry. The right’s “free speech” crowd has been revealed over the past decade as people who just want to make sure that *their* position has a platform–it’s the cops for everyone else!
Oren’s comment was spot on and excellently said.
A P.S. from the grammar police: The adverb “awhile” means “for a while” or “for a time,” so the construction “For awhile” is grammatically incorrect. What is wanted here is “For a while.”
Yes, thank you, the focus of the article is, after all, grammar….(?)
Thank you, Jim. Fixed.
Her resignation simply leads me to ask how do we go about criticizing a country’s policies and practices without being called anti-semitic?
Israeli and non-Israeli Jews criticize Israel all the time. Criticizing the politics of a country happens with every country.
Suggesting that Jews should not have a nation of their own, while not applying the same criticism to others (Muslims, Christians, Hindus, etc) would obviously be anti-Semitic.
Insisting that Jews are colonizers of a land they inhabited for millennia and were expelled from by Muslims, while not recognizing that Muslims colonized that land would be anti-Semitic.
It’s really quite simple. Applying a standard to Jews that you don’t apply to everyone else is anti-Semitic.
Just like applying a standard to Blacks that isn’t applied to others would be racist.
“Insisting that Jews are colonizers of a land they inhabited for millennia and were expelled from by Muslims, while not recognizing that Muslims colonized that land would be anti-Semitic.”
Really? Do the relatives of anyone who lived somewhere 2000+ years have an automatic right of return?
You know that as recently as 350 years ago, basically all of Massachusetts sill belonged to the natives?
You know that Manhattan Island was not sold to the Dutch, it was leased in a 30 year fishing rights deal with the local tribe? Do you own propertery in Manhattan?
Also no, most Central European Jews are NOT genetically more related to people from Phoenicia than other Central Europeans.
Yes, Jay, I’m aware of the examples you describe. Which makes the hypocrisy of the anti-Israel protesters even more ludicrous. Those protesters live on land that was violently usurped from native people, and yet they have no intention of ceding their apartments back despite their anti-colonialist chants and slogans.
Jews lived in the land of Israel even more recently than 2000 years ago. But even if that wasn’t the case, what is the statute of limitations? After what amount of time is it ok that people were violently expelled from their homes?
The Palestinians claim a right of return. At what point does their claim to that run out?
Remember also that the Palestinians have been given generous offers of a nation of their own on multiple occasions. They refused each time because their desire to have a Jew-free region is more important than having a nation of their own and prosperity for their people.
I encourage you to read about the history of the region.
Interesting that the Ivy League presidents forced to resign in recent years have all been women.
There were many beloved female Ivy League presidents who preceded those who resigned. So this is not really a gender issue. This is a competence issue. She was incompetent. As were the presidents of Harvard and Penn. They all handled the situations horribly. If you presented the situations to someone without identifying the genders of the presidents, they would come to the same conclusion. That is the true test of discrimination.
There’s still unfortunately tons of sexism in the world. By turning something into an accusation of sexism when it clearly is not, you are being the boy who cried wolf and setting back the women’s movement.
I’m sorry but Claudine Gay was never every qualified to lead Harvard. Her being female doesn’t affect that.
These issues are not limited to Columbia, Ivy League Universities or even higher education. Look at how many heads of private K-12 schools just here on the UWS have stepped down or were forced out: Ethical Culture, Collegiate, Calhoun off the top of my head.
NYC public schools don’t allow teachers and administrators to express political opinions. If pressed they would refer families to the official DOE statements. Public schools don’t have a board of directors and endowments.
It seems that private educational institutions are challenged most with trying to thread the needle our society and their communities are currently faced with. All this while trying to fundraise from alumni and families who want a say in how the school is run, what is in the curriculum, and what their stances should be.
I’m curious to see how anyone does in these top roles over the next few years.
Good riddance. She needed to go.
Better late than never!!