Columbia University President Manouch Shafik has stepped down amid unrest following student protests over Israel’s war in Gaza.
The university’s website currently lists Katrina Armstrong as interim president. Armstrong is the university’s executive vice president for health and biomedical sciences. She has led the Columbia University Irving Medical Center since 2022.
After only a year of service, starting in July 2023, Shafik’s departure comes weeks before the start of the autumn semester.
Shafik has been criticised over her handling of student protests in recent months that engulfed the New York private University campus, leaving the faculty in turmoil.
Students set up Pro-Palestinian encampments on the university’s main lawn on April 17, protesting the war in Gaza and calling for the university’s divestment from companies supporting Israel, while demanding more transparency in how endowments are invested.
On April 18, Shafik responded by sending New York Police onto the campus angering rights groups, students, and faculty. More than 100 arrests were made, as police removed tents, only for students to return days later.
The police, carrying zip ties and riot shields, were then called back on April 30, making 300 arrests, in total, around Columbia and City College of New York.
The latest conflict in Israel was triggered on October 7 when Hamas terrorists stormed Israel during its religious Simchat Torah holiday, massacring 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages. Israel responded with a military campaign to neutralize Hamas’s military capabilities in Gaza that were responsible for the attack.
According to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, about 40,000 Gazans have been killed since the fighting began. The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and noncombatants in its death counts.
Shafik is now one of three presidents of the prestigious Ivy League university groups to have resigned over the handling of the Pro-Palestinian protests. Liz Magill of the University of Pennsylvania stepped down on Dec 9, 2023, and Claudine Gay of Harvard resigned on Jan 3, 2024.
Shafik, a highly respected Egyptian-born economist who holds British and U.S. nationality, received a Damehood in 2015.
She previously led the London School of Economics and held roles at the World Bank, the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, and the Bank of England.
In her statement, Shafik said her decision “enables me to return to the House of Lords and to re-engage with the important legislative agenda put forth by the new UK government.”
