It was an abrupt departure for one of the Ivy League’s most embattled leaders: On Wednesday night, Columbia University President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik announced that she would resign, effective immediately.
The news was greeted with relief – and a healthy dose of suspicion – among student protesters, who believe Shafik’s brief tenure at the New York-based university will be defined by his harsh crackdown on anti-war demonstrations.
The departure stirred up a multitude of emotions for Maryam Alwan, 22. Among them was the feeling of being “personally vindicated.”
Alwan was among the students who led protests last spring, as Israel’s war in Gaza caused the Palestinian death toll to rise.
Columbia students first set up a “Gaza solidarity encampment” on campus in April, around the same time Shafik appeared before the U.S. Congress for a controversial hearing on anti-Semitism.
Their goal was to force Columbia to divest from any investments related to the Israeli military campaign and to call for a ceasefire. The camp was a vanguard: similar protest camps were soon scattered at higher education institutions across the United States and Canada.
Under Shafik’s leadership, however, Columbia administration called in police to disperse the encampment. Students were also suspended and disciplined for their participation in the protest.
After Shafik’s resignation, Alwan, who is part of the group Students for Justice in Palestine, said she was determined to continue fighting for Columbia to divest from any investments that profit from the war.
“I have no illusions that our demand for divestment will be appeased by the withdrawal of a representative,” she told Tel Aviv Tribune.
But change takes time, Alwan added. She drew a comparison between current events and earlier protests in Columbia against the Vietnam War.
“Columbia’s 1968 president also resigned belatedly in August after a spring of intense protest,” Alwan said, “but it took much longer for the student body to achieve its goals.”
“So it will be in our generation’s ongoing fight for justice and equality.”
A tumultuous mandate
Shafik’s resignation ended her brief but tumultuous tenure at the helm of the 270-year-old university. In her announcement, Shafik said she “tried to find a path that upholds academic principles and treats everyone with fairness and compassion.”
But for Carl Hart, a psychology professor, Shafik’s 14 months in the job have been marked by an erosion of the principles he tries to teach his students.
“I was really looking for the strength to understand how I could stand in front of a class and be honest,” he told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“Throughout my career, I have taught my students that we must stand up for those who have less of a voice and fight against injustice. I implore my students and ask them to use evidence to do this,” he explained.
“And when they did, they were punished.”
Hart added that while administrators have engaged in negotiations with the protesters, they have taken a punitive approach. The decision to call the New York police twice — on April 18 and April 30 — to clear the encampment and remove protesters who were occupying a campus building put students and faculty in “unnecessary danger,” he said.
The psychology professor also criticized what he sees as false allegations of anti-Semitism in the protests, shared by Shafik and the Columbia administration.
When Shafik was called to testify before the congressional committee on April 17, Hart felt she had capitulated to lawmakers seeking political mileage on the issue.
The hearing was titled “Columbia in Crisis: Columbia University’s Response to Anti-Semitism,” and members of Congress repeatedly accused students and faculty of discriminatory actions.
Particularly shocking was Shafik’s open discussion of the alleged actions of university faculty members during the hearing, which Hart said deprived them of any due process.
“It is a violation of the principles that we all hold dear, not only in academia, but in this country,” he said.
In the days following the hearing, Shafik faced a vote of no confidence from the university’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
An oversight committee also criticized the administration’s actions against the protesters as threatening academic freedom, but it stopped short of calling for Shafik’s resignation.
“I think that as a result of this fiasco, more faculty members will be aware of the selection process (for a new president),” Hart added. “So I’m pretty confident that our faculty members will be watching and trying to make sure that whoever we get is considerably more equipped to understand what we’re doing in this area.”
A “cautious hope” for change
Nara Milanich, a history professor at Columbia-affiliated Barnard College, also saw Shafik’s departure as “a welcome opportunity for a major reset.”
She called on Shafik’s replacement to commit to dialogue with faculty and students, as well as to “recommit to the core values of academic freedom and freedom of expression and to firmly resist external forces hostile to these values.”
“I think professors are cautiously hopeful that this new administration can turn a new page,” Milanich told Tel Aviv Tribune.
The new administration must also drop its disciplinary measures against student protesters, she added, noting that the Manhattan district attorney’s office has already dropped charges against most of the protesters arrested on campus.
Student protester Alwan is among those suspended. While that sanction is no longer in place, she told Tel Aviv Tribune she still faces “a very long and extremely delayed disciplinary process for the events of the spring semester.”
“We will not rest”
Cameron Jones, a 20-year-old urban studies major and lead organizer for Columbia’s Jewish Voice for Peace, also expressed hope that the university will appoint a “president who truly listens to students and faculty, rather than focusing solely on the interests of Congress and donors.”
“We are determined to continue our activism because we understand that it is not just one individual but the entire institution that is complicit in the ongoing genocide,” he told Tel Aviv Tribune. “We will not rest until Colombia divests and Palestine is free.”
Jones, however, expressed concern about how the university plans to respond to future student activism when the fall semester begins in September. Reports indicate the university is considering authorizing its public safety officers to make arrests.
“Over the summer, numerous reports surfaced that the university was considering escalating its crackdown on our activism,” Jones said.
“It is clear that (Shafik’s resignation) is a deliberate diversion from the university’s increasingly authoritarian actions.”