Some professors and students welcomed Columbia University President Minouche Shafik’s resignation.
Following a controversial tenure during which she received harsh criticism for how she handled student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, Shafik resigned from her position on Wednesday.
In April, the Columbia University students established a pro-Palestine protest encampment and demanded that the University divest from businesses they claimed were supporting the war.
On April 18, Shafik authorized the police to raid the camp and arrest more than 100 students, a move that inspired several protests in colleges nationwide. In addition, Columbia suspended students and canceled lectures to crack down on the campus protest.
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Late in April, police in riot-clad broke into a building occupied by protestors and forcefully arrested protesters. Thousands of people were arrested, leading to violent clashes with the police, leading to other universities also cracking down on protestors.
In a letter to the university community, Shafik stated, “I have had the honor and privilege to lead this incredible institution, and I believe that—working together—we have made progress in a number of important areas. However, it has also been a period of turmoil where it has been difficult to overcome divergent views across our community.”
She said, “This period has taken a considerable toll on my family, as it has for others in the community. Over the summer, I have been able to reflect and have decided that moving on at this point would best enable Columbia to traverse the challenges ahead.”
Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine stated that after months of chanting “Minouche Shafik you can’t hide,” she had “finally got the memo.”
The group stated on X (formerly Twitter), “To be clear, any future president who does not pay heed to the Columbia student body’s overwhelming demand for divestment will end up exactly as President Shafik did.”
The university chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace posted on X (formerly Twitter) that Columbia students “will never forget the sheer violence unleashed upon us by Minouche Shafik, and her removal will not placate us as the university’s repression of the pro-Palestinian student movement continues.”
According to Michael Thaddeus, the vice president of the American Association of University Professors at Columbia and a professor of mathematics, the students and faculty’s support for Shafik “collapsed after the tumultuous events of last spring.”
He told the media, “This was evident from the faculty vote of no confidence spearheaded by the AAUP, which passed by a wide majority.” “It was equally clear from the poll of students conducted by New York Magazine and the Columbia Spectator, in which only 4 percent of those polled agreed that “her administration has handled the demonstrations well.”
He added, “A single person did not cause the crisis at Columbia. President Shafik’s departure will not resolve the serious problems confronting us. We at AAUP will continue to fight for academic values, including a commitment to free, robust, and untrammeled debate by faculty and students.”
Nadia Abu El-Haj, an Anthropology professor at Columbia University and Bernard College and co-director of the Centre for Palestine Studies at Columbia, declared that Shafik’s presidency was “an epic failure.”
El-Haj told the media that Shafik “displayed no understanding of what a university is and zero commitments to its core values, and we are now left to pick up the pieces and repair the damage she leaves behind.”
“We see her departure as an opportunity for Columbia to reset, recommit to the basic values of academic freedom and free expression, and to stand firm against outside pressures intent on dismantling higher education in the U.S.”
A Columbia law professor, Katherine Franke, posted on X that Shafik “threw me under the bus when she testified before Congress, but I’m still an employee of Columbia University; she’s not.” Franke went further, saying, ” It turns out that capitulating to the bullies didn’t work out well for her. It never does.”
During the congressional hearing in April, Shafik defended Columbia’s efforts to combat antisemitism on campus. Compared to the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, Claudine Gay, and Liz Magill, who eventually resigned after facing criticism for focusing on the protection of free speech in their previous testimony before the House Education and Workforce Committee, she had adopted a more accommodating tone.
Shai Davidai, an assistant professor in Columbia Business School’s management division, addressed Shafik’s resignation in a YouTube post.
Davidai, a Jewish and an opponent of the students’ protest stated, “People are asking me if I’m happy. I’m not happy. I’m not unhappy. It’s never been about Shafik. It’s never been personal.” “It always has and always will be about the Jewish students, staff, and faculty.”
The protestors have been called antisemitic by Davidai and other supporters of Israel, but the students’ protestors have denied this accusation, stating that they are against Israel’s actions in Gaza.
