Columbia University president Minouche Shafik resigned on Wednesday, just weeks before students are set to return to campus for the fall semester and 13 months after she assumed the job.
Shafik's departure comes in the wake of a series of scandals that have roiled the school stemming from the anti-Israel and frequently anti-Semitic protests that roiled the Morningside Heights campus over the past several months.
The most recent led to the resignation last week of three deans following a Washington Free Beacon report revealing the offensive, anti-Semitic text messages they exchanged during an alumni reunion panel on Jewish life held in late May.
"I write with sadness to tell you that I am stepping down as president of Columbia University effective August 14, 2024," Shafik wrote in an email to members of the Columbia community on Wednesday evening. "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. 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."
Shafik's resignation made her the third Ivy League president to step down in connection with the eruption of anti-Semitism that has convulsed university campuses over the past year, after Hamas's brutal Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the Jewish State's ongoing war to eradicate the terrorist organization.
University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill stepped down in December 2023 after she told a congressional panel that she could not say whether calling for the genocide of Jews was a violation of the school's code of conduct. "It is a context-dependent decision," she said. Magill's departure was followed shortly thereafter by that of Harvard University president Claudine Gay, who testified alongside Magill and was the subject of a series of Free Beacon reports revealing she had plagiarized extensively in her limited scholarly writings.
During Shafik's short-lived tenure, Columbia became ground zero for the anti-Israel protest movement that reached its apex when student activists stormed and occupied a university building in late April. After unsuccessful efforts to negotiate with those students, Shafik called in the New York Police Department to remove the students from the building and clear the tent encampment they had erected. To date, it is not clear how, if at all, the university has sanctioned the students responsible for the break-in.
The administration's inability to adequately secure the campus led to the cancellation of the school's graduation ceremony in May. Then, as alumni returned to campus for their class reunions, student activists erected another encampment replete with a cardboard missile plastered with photographs of university leaders, including Shafik. "We're back, bitches," they declared.
It was that same weekend that four of Shafik's deputies—Columbia College dean Josef Sorett, the vice dean and chief administrative officer of Columbia College, Susan Chang-Kim, the dean of undergraduate student life, Cristen Kromm, and the dean of student and family support, Matthew Patashnick—were captured on camera tapping out hostile text messages during a panel on the future of Jewish life on campus, suggesting the speakers, who drew attention to the struggles of Jewish students on campus, were "taking full advantage of the moment" for its "fundraising potential." Chang-Kim, Kromm, and Patashnick resigned last week.
Shafik will be replaced on an interim basis by Katrina Armstrong, the CEO of Columbia's Irving Medical Center and dean of the university's medical school.
"We believe that Katrina is the right leader for this moment," the co-chairs of the university's board of trustees, David Greenwald and Claire Shipman, said in an email on Wednesday evening in which they said they were "disappointed" to see Shafik step down. "We are grateful to her for stepping in, and we call on our community to support her."
A spokesman for Columbia University did not respond to a request for comment.