Dive Temporary:
- Minouche Shafik resigned as president of Columbia College Wednesday following months of requires her departure from each pro-Palestinian protesters and their critics.
- Dr. Katrina Armstrong, Columbia’s colleges of well being sciences dean and CEO of the college’s Irving Medical Middle, took over because the Ivy League establishment’s interim president following Shafik’s announcement.
- The change in management comes lower than three weeks earlier than the beginning of the autumn semester. A college spokesperson Thursday declined to handle questions on Columbia’s search course of for a everlasting alternative.
Dive Perception:
Shafik grew to become Columbia’s president simply over a 12 months in the past, in July 2023. Shortly thereafter, the Oct. 7 Hamas assault on Israel reignited conflicts within the area, and the ensuing tumult that spilled onto school campuses grew to become a signature of her tenure.
Schools — lengthy residence to scholar activism — struggled to stability free speech rights and harassment protections amid anti-war protests. At Columbia, college students referred to as for the college to divest from Israel-affiliated firms and weapons producers.
However the protesters additionally confronted accusations of antisemitism. Shafik testified in April to the Home training committee on the subject — her look was not properly obtained by both facet.
Shafik’s resignation makes her the third president of a high-profile, selective college to step down following a congressional grilling. Claudine Homosexual of Harvard College and Elizabeth Magill of the College of Pennsylvania have been each pushed out from their positions after testifying earlier than the committee in December.
Following Shafik’s testimony, an escalation in protests and encampments compelled Columbia to the middle of the talk over pro-Palestinian demonstrations and antisemitism on school campuses.
Shafik confronted criticism from almost each constituency underneath her purview. Protesters accused her of silencing dissent and violating Columbia’s insurance policies. Jewish affinity teams tied to the college blamed her for permitting hate speech and referred to as on her to enact zero tolerance insurance policies. College teams walked out over her choice to ask police onto Columbia’s non-public campus to interrupt up protests and arrest college students.
As well as, conservative lawmakers, like Rep. Virginia Foxx, blasted Shafik for being too weak in disciplining school and college students who violated Columbia’s harassment insurance policies.
Foxx, a North Carolina Republican and chair of the Home Schooling and the Workforce Committee, additionally persistently criticized Shafik for permitting a tradition of antisemitism to thrive.
“Throughout Shafik’s presidency, a disturbing wave of antisemitic harassment, discrimination, and dysfunction” engulfed Columbia’s campus, Foxx stated in a Wednesday assertion. “Flagrant violations of the legislation and the college guidelines went unpunished.”
“Columbia’s subsequent chief should take daring motion to handle the pervasive antisemitism, assist for terrorism, and contempt for the college’s guidelines which were allowed to flourish on its campus,” Foxx continued.
Armstrong, who Foxx didn’t reference by title, acknowledged that Columbia is within the midst of a pivotal second.
“I’m aware of the trials the College has confronted over the previous 12 months,” she stated in a Wednesday assertion. “We should always neither understate their significance, nor permit them to outline who we’re and what we are going to turn into.”
Armstrong stated her tenure as head of Columbia’s medical middle has been grounded in “constant engagement with the whole school,” a strategy she intends to hold over into her interim presidency.
On Wednesday, David Greenwald and Claire Shipman, co-chairs of Columbia’s trustee board, praised Armstrong as an empathic chief, scientist and humanist.
“Katrina brings a very distinctive skillset to our College and our present challenges,” Greenwald and Shipman stated in a joint assertion. “We imagine that Katrina is the appropriate chief for this second. We’re grateful to her for stepping in, and we name on our neighborhood to assist her.”
Armstrong additionally stated that Shafik, in addition to former long-time Columbia President Lee Bollinger, will stay accessible to her and the college transferring ahead.
Shafik, who will take a place with the overseas secretary of the UK, stated she timed her announcement to permit for a management change previous to the autumn semester.
“I’ve tried to navigate a path that upholds tutorial rules and treats everybody with equity and compassion. It has been distressing — for the neighborhood, for me as president and on a private degree — to search out myself, colleagues, and college students the topic of threats and abuse,” Shafik stated in her announcement.
Armstrong is unlikely to have any simpler time than her predecessor did. Along with being underneath the watchful eye of federal lawmakers, she can be contending with scholar activism teams, like Columbia College students for Justice in Palestine, pushing for divestment.
“To be clear, any future president who doesn’t pay heed to the Columbia scholar physique’s overwhelming demand for divestment will find yourself precisely as President Shafik did,” Columbia SJP stated on social media Wednesday.
