Columbia University’s president resigned Wednesday, becoming the third Ivy League leader to be forced from office, after anger over the Israel-Hamas war resulted in widespread protests and a sharp rise in complaints of religious discrimination on college campuses.
Minouche Shafik, the first woman and first person of colour to lead Columbia, announced her resignation amid lingering bitterness among students and faculty over the school’s forced removal of protesters from an encampment and a building they had taken over on the campus in Upper Manhattan.
“This period has taken a considerable toll on my family, as it has for others in our community,” Shafik said in a statement announcing her departure. “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.”
Katrina Armstrong, head of the university’s medical centre, will serve as interim president, the co-chairs of the board of trustees announced in separate statement.
The timing of the announcement was notable, coming as students are returning for the fall semester and the protests have diminished from their peak shortly after the war broke out following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants on Israel.
Hamas fighters killed about 1,200 people and took 250 hostages, prompting an Israel response that has been widely condemned as disproportionate, resulting in about 40,000 deaths. Many protesters called for an immediate cease-fire and for universities to cut ties to Israel, but they also included activists with much more extreme positions, including the elimination of the Jewish state.
The war and the protests exposed deep divisions on college campuses, highlighting conflicts between academic freedom, free speech and the need to prevent religious discrimination and uphold student conduct standards.
“I have tried to navigate a path that upholds academic principles and treats everyone with fairness and compassion,” Shafik said. “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. “
Her resignation — just a year into her tenure — followed those of the presidents of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania. All three leaders faced withering criticism as they appeared before the House Education Committee about reports of antisemitism and harassment of Jewish students during the protests.
Shafik faced calls for her resignation from students and faculty angered over her decision to authorize the arrest of protesters, and from Democratic and Republican lawmakers who said she failed to protect Jewish students from harassment and assault.
Political pressure intensified in April when House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana visited the campus and met with the president and called for the president to step down.
Shafik, an Egyptian-born economist, started as Columbia’s president in July after serving as director of the London School of Economics and Political Science. She replaced Lee Bollinger, a First Amendment scholar and the named defendant in a landmark Affirmative Action Supreme Court case, who had served for over two decades.
Shafik’s presidency was marked by contention from the start. A stream of demonstrators in white coats interrupted her inauguration to protest the university’s response to Robert Hadden, a Columbia gynecologist who sexually abused hundreds of patients.