Columbia University president Minouche Shafik, who presided over the higher-education institution’s anti-Israel protests this spring, announced her resignation Wednesday night more than a year after she assumed the role.
“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,” Shafik wrote in an email to the campus community. “I am making this announcement now so that new leadership can be in place before the new term begins.”
Katrina Armstrong, CEO of Columbia University’s Irving Medical Center, was named the interim president, the student-run Columbia Daily Spectator reported. Columbia’s fall semester starts on September 3.
The embattled leader faced mounting calls to resign over her handling of the protests, which were carried out in response to the ongoing Israel–Hamas war. Washington Free Beacon editor in chief Eliana Johnson first broke the news of Shafik’s resignation on X.
Her departure comes about a week after three Columbia deans resigned after they were suspended for exchanging text messages that “disturbingly touched on ancient antisemitic tropes,” university officials have said.
Shafik is the third Ivy League president to step down following backlash to congressional testimony on alleged campus antisemitism, preceded by the resignations of Harvard University president Claudine Gay and University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill related to their remarks during a separate congressional hearing on antisemitism. Massachusetts Institute of Technology president Sally Kornbluth is the only witness from that hearing to retain her post.
In April, Shafik testified before the Republican-led House Education and Workforce Committee about the harassment and assault of Jewish students by anti-Israel protesters on campus. In the days and weeks thereafter, protests and encampments broke out on campus before the New York Police Department had to step in at Shafik’s request.
In May, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Columbia ultimately passed a vote of no confidence in the president over her poor handling of the situation. The motion centered on Shafik’s decision to call in the NYPD to clear out an anti-Israel encampment without first notifying the university senate.