New York, 15 August 2024 (TDI): In the heat of a conflict over free speech and student protests against the Gaza War, Columbia University President Minouche Shafik announced her resignation.
Just a few weeks before the start of the autumn semester, Ms. Shafik resigned from her role at the prestigious Ivy League university in New York City, barely a year after she started there.
With her handling of rallies against the Gaza conflict, Ms. Shafik has become the third president of an Ivy League university to step down.
Almost a hundred students were arrested when Ms. Shafik gave the controversial order for NYPD officers to rush the campus in April, when they were occupying a university facility.
Since anti-Vietnam War riots more than 50 years earlier, this particular incident marked the first time that Columbia University’s campus had seen widespread arrests.
Several campuses in the US and Canada saw additional protests provoked by the move.
Ms. Shafik said that she has been in charge of “A difficult period when our community’s differing opinions have been hard to reconcile” in an email sent on Wednesday to teachers and students.
“As with others in our community, this time has been extremely difficult for my family.”
The Columbia University Irving Medical Center’s chief executive officer, Katrina Armstrong, has been named the acting president.
University administrators are facing difficult questions in light of the violent campus discussions around the Middle East, compounded by the outrage of students about how Israel is conducting its war against Hamas.
Since Israel’s entrance into the Gaza Strip on October 7th, following an attack by Hamas, US college campuses have become hubs for rallies against the Gaza war.
Also read: US Aims to Lower Temperature in Middle East: Envoy
Witnesses before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce included the presidents of Harvard University, UPenn, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
After facing criticism for their handling of student protests and congressional testimony—including their failure to acknowledge that asking for the deaths of Jews could be against university policy—the presidents of Harvard and Penn eventually resigned.
When Ms. Shafik testified before Congress in April, she defended her college’s initiatives against antisemitism, citing an increase in such sentiment on campus and attempts to protect students.
Formerly employed by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Bank of England, Ms. Shafik is a highly respected economist of Egyptian descent.
She was the London School of Economics’ president before that.
The BBC reported in 2019 that Ms. Shafik, who was awarded a damehood in 2015, was formerly thought to be on the shortlist for the governorship of the Bank of England.
In her letter, she also states that the UK Foreign Secretary has requested her to oversee a “review of the government’s approach to international development and how to improve capability.”
She stated that the choice “allows me to rejoin the House of Lords and to actively participate in the significant legislative agenda presented by the new UK government.”
Her resignation mirrors those of three other deans from Columbia University who also left their positions last week. Ms. Shafik’s statement claimed that the group’s use of “anti-Semitic tropes” in text conversations about Jewish students was revealed.
Initially, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, which is dominated by Republicans, released the text exchanges in the start of July.
The three administrators’ choice to step down was applauded by Congresswoman Virginia Foxx, the head of the congressional committee.
While the crisis in Gaza rages on, universities around the United States are getting ready for the upcoming academic year, which starts in a few weeks.
A Californian judge decided on Tuesday that UCLA, the scene of violent rallies in May, has to stop demonstrators from barring Jewish students from using university facilities.
By “establishing checkpoints and requiring visitors to wear a specific wristband to cross them,” demonstrators had blocked “people who supported the existence of the state of Israel,” according to Judge Mark Scarsi’s ruling.
Judge Scarsi stated in the decision that Jewish students were kept out of certain areas of the UCLA campus because they would not renounce their religious beliefs. This information needs to be repeated since it is both unfathomable and repugnant to our constitutional guarantee of religious freedom.
The institution claimed it opposed with the decision and accused outside agitators of putting up the roadblocks.
Also read: U.S. Presidential Elections: The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same
On October 7, gunmen led by Hamas attacked Israel, killing over 1,200 people and capturing 251 more as prisoners to return to Gaza.
The present conflict and a significant Israeli military incursion against Gaza were started by that strike.
The Israeli campaign has resulted in at least 39,897 Palestinian deaths, according to the health ministry operated by Hamas in Gaza.
