Shafik is the fourth Ivy League president to step down in the last year amid growing antisemitism and anti-Israel activism at elite universities

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Columbia University President Minouche Shafik visits Hamilton Hall on the campus of Columbia University on May 1, 2024 in New York City.
Columbia University President Minouche Shafik announced her resignation on Wednesday, days before the start of the school year — and months after the end of a chaotic school year that saw her testify before Congress about antisemitism and navigate the unruly fallout of the first anti-Israel encampment in the nation.
Dr. Katrina Armstrong, CEO of Columbia’s Irving Medical Center, will serve as interim president, a university spokesperson confirmed to Jewish Insider. A source familiar said Armstrong has already been in touch with Hillel leadership at Columbia.
News of Shafik’s resignation was first reported by the Washington Free Beacon’s Eliana Johnson. Shafik is the fourth Ivy League president to step down in the last year amid rising anti-Israel activism on campuses, following the University of Pennsylvania’s Elizabeth Magill, Harvard’s Claudine Gay and Cornell University’s Martha Pollack.
“I have had the honor and privilege to lead this incredible institution, and I believe that — working together — we have made progress in a number of important areas,” Shafik, who only started in the role in July 2023, wrote in an email to the Columbia community.
“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,” she wrote.
Following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, Columbia, like other American universities, saw an uptick in antisemitism and targeting of Zionist students. But in an April hearing before the House Education and the Workforce Committee, Shafik avoided the kind of viral moment that dogged her colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
But when she went back to Manhattan, she faced the first anti-Israel encampment at an American university. Her decision to call in the police to break up the demonstration set off a wave of anger among many students and faculty members on campus and sparked dozens of other solidarity encampments at other universities.
From there, her leadership was under a microscope. Following a number of antisemitic incidents related to the encampment, several members of Congress from both parties went to Columbia to speak to Jewish students and show solidarity.
In a statement, the Anti-Defamation League said it is “saddened that the leadership of another flagship university has crumbled under the weight of antisemitism on its campus,” calling on the school to move quickly to fill the leadership vacancy before the fall semester.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), in a statement first shared with JI, cheered Shafik’s decision to step aside: “As a result of President Shafik’s refusal to protect Jewish students and maintain order on campus, Columbia University became the epicenter for virulent antisemitism that has plagued many American university campuses since Hamas’ barbaric attack on Israel last fall.”
“I stood in President Shafik’s office in April and told her to resign, and while it is long overdue, we welcome today’s news. Jewish students at Columbia beginning this school year should breathe a sigh of relief…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 added.
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), the chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said that, under Shafik’s leadership “a disturbing wave of antisemitic harassment, discrimination, and disorder engulfed Columbia university’s campus” and students were allowed to break the law with impunity.
“Columbia’s next leader must take bold action to address the pervasive antisemitism, support for terrorism, and contempt for the university’s rules that have been allowed to flourish on its campus,” Foxx continued,
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), a prominent member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, crowed, “THREE DOWN, so many to go,” adding that her “failed presidency was untenable and that it was only a matter of time before her forced resignation.”
She added, “We will continue to demand moral clarity, condemnation of antisemitism, protection of Jewish students and faculty, and stronger leadership from American higher education institutions.”
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) told JI that the resignation was “long overdue.”
“I have been calling for President Shafik to be ousted or resign ever since her abysmal failure to condemn Columbia’s antisemitic outbursts or ensure the safety of Jewish students on her campus,” Lawler said. “Let this be a lesson to all who waver in the face of evil.”
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) said that “when President Shafik failed to enforce the code of conduct and protect Jewish students just trying to walk to class safely, she failed at her job and allowed a hostile, antisemitic environment to escalate.”
He asserted that similar treatment of any other minority group would have been quickly stopped by school administrators and that signs reading “go back to Poland” displayed just outside Columbia’s gates when he visited the campus have stuck with him.
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) called Columbia “ground zero for campus antisemitism in NYC,” urging the new leadership to “summon the moral clarity and the moral courage to confront the deep rot of antisemitism at Columbia’s core.”
But Columbia’s problems didn’t stop with the encampment. In late April, student protesters occupied a campus administrative building, leading to hundreds of arrests by police. (The charges have since been dropped against most student protesters.)
Two days later, President Joe Biden condemned unlawful protests at U.S. universities. “Destroying property is not a peaceful protest. It’s against the law. Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduation — none of this is a peaceful protest,” he said in a White House address in May. “It’s against the law.”
In May, the faculty of arts and sciences — which was mostly supportive of the anti-Israel encampment — approved a vote of no confidence in Shafik.
Columbia made news earlier this month when three deans who had been placed on leave over exchanging antisemitic text messages resigned.
And as recently as this week, lawmakers demanded that the school reimburse the New York Police Department for costs incurred in clearing the encampment on the Columbia campus.
Brian Cohen, executive director of Columbia/Barnard Hillel, declined to comment on Shafik’s departure but praised Armstrong’s appointment as interim president.
“I think very highly of Dr. Armstrong and I know many colleagues feel the same way,” Cohen told JI. “She is a strong leader — when there were issues that needed to be addressed at the Medical Center, Dr. Armstrong was quick to respond and to address the issues.”
Jewish Insider Congressional correspondent Emily Jacobs contributed to this report.
House Speaker Mike Johnson and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries also spoke out against rising antisemitism at the annual congressional Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony

Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images
President Joe Biden and House Speaker Mike Johnson hold images of Holocaust victims during the annual Days of Remembrance ceremony for Holocaust survivors at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on May 7, 2024. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
In a forceful speech on Tuesday at the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony on Capitol Hill, President Joe Biden delivered strong remarks denouncing violent anti-Israel protests on college campuses, harassment and violence targeting the American Jewish community and ongoing efforts to deny, downplay or move past the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
The remarks, one of Biden’s clearest denunciations of antisemitism and Hamas in months, came amid surging anti-Israel protests on college campuses around the country and growing domestic and international pressure on Israel.
“I see your fear, your hurt and your pain, let me reassure you as your president you are not alone, you belong, you always have and you always will,” Biden said. “And my commitment to the safety of the Jewish people, the security of Israel, and its right to exist as an independent Jewish state is ironclad, even when we disagree.”
The president said that the right to hold strong beliefs about world events and to “debate, disagree, protest peacefully” is fundamental to America, but that there is “no place on any campus in America, any place in America for antisemitism, hate speech or threats of violence of any kind.”
Biden emphasized that attacks and destruction of property — which have happened on a number of campuses — are not protected speech and are illegal.
“We are not a lawless country, we are a civil society. We uphold the rule of law,” Biden said. “No one should have to hide or be afraid just to be themselves.”
He said that it’s incumbent on all Americans to “be those guardians, we must never rest, we must rise against hate, meet across the divide, see our common humanity,” and that attacks on any minority group are threats to all minority groups.
Biden also condemned those who have already moved past the Hamas attack on Israel, and the “too many people” who are “denying, downplaying, rationalizing, ignoring the horrors of the Holocaust and Oct. 7, including Hamas’ appalling use of sexual violence to torture and terrorize Jews.”
“Now, here we are, not 75 years later, but just seven and a half months later,” Biden said. “People are already forgetting that Hamas unleashed this terror. It was Hamas that brutalized Israelis, it was Hamas that took and that continues to hold hostages. I have not forgotten and neither have you. And we will not forget.”
He connected such rhetoric to the Holocaust, highlighting that the Holocaust began with smaller crimes in the face of “indifference” from the world.
“It’s absolutely despicable and it must stop,” Biden added, of the Oct. 7 denialism. “Silence and denial can hide much but it can erase nothing… it cannot be buried no matter how hard people try.”
Biden pledged that he is “working around the clock” and “will not rest” until all hostages held in Gaza are freed.
In connection with Biden’s speech, the administration announced on Tuesday a series of additional steps to combat antisemitism.
The Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights issued new guidance to every school district and college in the country that provides “examples of Antisemitic discrimination, as well as other forms of hate,” which could prompt civil rights investigations, according to a White House announcement.
Education officials told Jewish leaders last week the guidance is aimed at helping school leaders distinguish between protected free speech and antisemitic incidents.
The Department of Homeland Security will create a new “campus safety resources guide” to help schools access “financial, educational and technical assistance” available to them.
DHS is also set to assemble and disseminate guidance on “community-based targeted violence and terrorism prevention” and ensure that targeted communities are aware of the federal resources available to them.
And the State Department’s Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism will bring together technology companies to discuss procedures for combating antisemitism online.
In separate remarks, Stuart Eizenstat, the administration’s special adviser for Holocaust issues, praised the House for passing the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which would codify the requirement that the Department of Education use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism and its examples in assessing campus antisemitism. Eizenstat said the bill would help clarify the definition of antisemitism.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) drew direct connections between the Holocaust, and the events that led up to it, and current events on U.S. college campuses, highlighting the role of German universities in perpetuating antisemitism and ultimately atrocities during the Holocaust.
“We remember what happened then, and now today, we are witnessing American universities quickly becoming hostile for Jewish students and faculty,” Johnson said. “The very campuses [that] were once the envy of the international academy have succumbed to an antisemitic virus… Now is the time for moral clarity, and we must put an end to this madness.”
Speaking graphically about both events, Johnson drew direct parallels between the atrocities of the Holocaust and the Oct. 7 attack.
“We must be graphic right now because the threat of repeating the past is so great,” Johnson said. “And some are trying to downplay, justify what happened on Oct. 7. Some are even blaming Israel for the barbaric, inhuman attacks. There are some who would prefer to criticize Israel and lecture them on their military tactics… than punish the terrorists who perpetrated these horrific crimes.”
Johnson added that it’s “very important we deliver” the “critical assistance” to Israel “without any delay at all” and that “we have to do all that we can, everything within our power, to ensure that evil does not prevail.”
The administration has reportedly been delaying shipments of bombs to Israel over disputes about Israel’s operations in Gaza.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) likewise highlighted the “deeply disturbing rise in antisemitism on campuses, throughout the country and around the world, adding that it’s a “very searing time for the Jewish community.”
Jeffries called to “recommit to the principle of Never Again,” and to “eradicating antisemitism whenever and wherever it rears its ugly head.”
“We must crush antisemitism along with racism and sexism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, homophobia and all other forms of hatred, together,” Jeffries said. “That is the American way, together. And together, we will defeat antisemitism with the fierce urgency of now. That’s a moral necessity.”