Columbia University President Minouche Shafik resigns after 'period of turmoil'

Columbia University President Nemat "Minouche" Shafik announced in an email Wednesday that she is stepping down. Shafik is the third Ivy League university president to leave her job following criticism over how she has handled campus protests regarding the Israel-Hamas war.

Shafik, who held the job for 13 months, wrote that she had time this summer to reflect and decided it would be best for Columbia if she moved on. 

“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,” she wrote. “However, it has also been a period of turmoil where 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.”

Shafik added, "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. As President Lincoln said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand” — we must do all we can to resist the forces of polarization in our community."

An economist and former president of the London School of Economics, Shafik was the first woman to lead the university. She came under fire shortly after her inauguration last fall. She was accused of not doing enough to protect Jewish students from discrimination and harassment, and critics said she waffled when she appeared before the House Education Committee in April to answer questions such as whether certain slogans would be considered antisemitic.

Others said she came down too hard on pro-Palestinian students when she called in police to clear their encampment and occupation of a building.

Shafik joins a handful of other presidents of prestigious universities who resigned recently. Presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were urged to resign because of how they answered questions about antisemitism on their respective campuses during a congressional testimony. While the heads of Penn and Harvard resigned, MIT president Sally Kornbluth has kept her position.

In an email to the university community, Columbia’s board of trustees said it “regretfully accepts Minouche Shafik’s decision to step down as president of the University. Minouche has contributed so much to the Columbia community in an extraordinarily challenging time and has been a wonderful colleague and friend. While we are disappointed to see her leave us, we understand and respect her decision.”

Shafik’s resignation is effective as of today. She said she wanted to make the announcement now so that new leadership can be in place for this school year, which begins in just a few weeks.

Katrina Armstrong, CEO of the Columbia University Irving Medical Center, will become interim president.

"As I step into this role, I am acutely aware of the trials the University has faced over the past year," Armstrong wrote in her own email to the Columbia community. "We should neither understate their significance, nor allow them to define who we are and what we will become."