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- Columbia University President Nemat "Minouche" Shafik resigned on Wednesday.
- The Ivy League campus has been wracked by unrest and protests over the Israel-Hamas war for months.
- Shafik is the third Ivy League president to step down since the war began last year.
Columbia University President Nemat "Minouche" Shafik resigned on Wednesday following months of unrest at the Ivy League campus stemming from protests over the Israel-Hamas war.
Shafik sent an email to members of the Columbia University community announcing her resignation. She is the third Ivy League head to step down since the war began last year.
Columbia did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the email, Shafik said there had been "a period of turmoil where it has been difficult to overcome divergent views across our community." She said after being able to reflect over the summer she decided stepping down was best for Columbia's future.
"This period has taken a considerable toll on my family, as it has for others in our community," Shafik wrote.
Shafik, a former vice president at the World Bank, said stepping down now, just weeks before the new semester was set to begin, would allow new leadership to be in place at the start of the new term. Classes are set to begin on September 3, while first-year undergraduate students begin moving in on August 24.
Dr. Katrina Armstrong, the dean of Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons, announced in a follow-up email that she would serve as 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 the email."We should neither understate their significance, nor allow them to define who we are and what we will become."
The university's board of trustees said in an email that they "regretfully" accepted Shafik's decision to step down.
"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," the email said.
Shafik, one of Columbia's shortest-serving presidents, also announced her next steps, saying the UK's foreign secretary asked her to chair a review of the government's approach to international development. Shafik has been a member of the House of Lords since 2020 and previously served as president of the London School of Economics.
The economist became Columbia's 20th president in July 2023, just three months before the Israel-Hamas war began, throwing universities into chaos.
Shafik was the latest Ivy League president to resign in the wake of the criticism over how universities were responding to antisemitism on campus and protests related to the war.
Elizabeth Magill, then-president of the University of Pennsylvania, resigned in December shortly after appearing at a widely watched congressional hearing. In January, Claudine Gay, then-president of Harvard University, who also appeared at the hearing, resigned.
Shafik appeared at a congressional hearing in April, during which she took a harder stance against antisemitism than the other university presidents had in the prior hearing.
Columbia was the site of mass protests over the Israel-Hamas war, with some pro-Palestine protesters occupying one of the main buildings on the Manhattan campus in April. Hundreds of students were arrested, with the police response also drawing some backlash.
"After months of chanting 'Minouche Shafik you can't hide' she finally got the memo," wrote Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine on X. "To be clear, any future president who does not pay heed to the Columbia student body's overwhelming demand for divestment will end up exactly as President Shafik did."
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson issued a statement noting that he pressured Shafik to resign in April, adding that "Jewish students at Columbia beginning this school year should breathe a sigh of relief." He praised New York Rep. Elise Stefanik and North Carolina Rep. Virginia Foxx for investigating "the scourge of antisemitism on college campuses."
"We hope that President Shafik's resignation serves as an example to university administrators across the country that tolerating or protecting antisemites is unacceptable and will have consequences," Johnson said.