The left and right agree on one thing: Columbia’s president had to go

The resignation of Columbia University’s president on Wednesday brought a rare moment of consensus between disparate factions across the political spectrum: Minouche Shafik had to go.

Republican lawmakers who had lamented pro-Palestinian protests on campuses across the country — and particularly at elite schools — were quick to celebrate her departure as their latest win after knocking two other Ivy League presidents from their posts last winter. Some Jewish Democrats in Congress said Shafik’s exit helped make campus safer. And progressive student activists, along with pro-Palestinian groups, cast it as a tentative win amid their campaign to convince universities to cut ties with Israel.

Shafik, who announced her resignation just weeks ahead of the school year’s start, said the chaos during her first year as president had taken a toll on her family and the community.

“I have tried to navigate a path that upholds academic principles and treats everyone with fairness and compassion,” she said in a statement. “It has been distressing—for the community, for me as president and on a personal level—to find myself, colleagues, and students the subject of threats and abuse.”

The response to Shafik’s departure suggests that, despite the pause in on-campus protests over the summer, activism around the war in Gaza could reemerge as a nagging political issue for Democrats in the run-up to the election. Vice President Kamala Harris has voiced sharper criticism of Israel’s operation in Gaza than President Joe Biden, but has not said if their policy in the region might differ.

And as Shafik, a Baroness, returns to London’s House of Lords to chair an international development initiative in the United Kingdom government, Columbia student organizers expect those protests to continue in full force.

“We are committed to continuing our activism because we understand that it is not just one individual but the entire institution that is complicit in the ongoing genocide,” Cam Jones, a lead organizer of the Columbia student protests, said in a statement to POLITICO. “We will not rest until Columbia divests and Palestine is free.”

A Columbia spokesperson declined to comment on the response to Shafik’s resignation.

The Upper Manhattan school had faced tensions for months over student protests against the university’s ties to Israel, whose bombardment of Gaza has killed over 40,000 Palestinians and resulted in a humanitarian crisis in response to an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, which killed about 1,200 people and took 250 hostages. The situation at Columbia erupted in April when Shafik twice called the New York Police Department , which swarmed the campus and arrested hundreds of demonstrators — mostly students — who had erected a tent encampment on a lawn and occupied an academic building .

Republican and Democratic lawmakers slammed Shafik for allowing what they characterized as pervasive antisemitism to spread through the school. Free speech hawks bashed her for suppressing protests and academic freedom . And students watched her seal their campus, move classes online and cancel their main graduation ceremony .

For the demonstrators, “it’s hard to tell” if Shafik’s resignation is a victory, Layla Saliba, a Palestinian student involved in the protests, said in an interview. On one hand, she said, “it shows the strength of the student movement.” But, she added, “we're going to have to really see how the replacement treats students and treats student organizers.”

“I’m seeing it as a testament of our activism,” Jones said of Shafik’s exit. “But a win would be divestment and an end to Columbia’s ties to the apartheid state.”

Afaf Nasher, director of the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, “welcomed” Shafik’s resignation in a statement. She criticized the former president for “unleashing law enforcement on Columbia students instead of giving serious consideration to their more than reasonable demand.”

The two Republican lawmakers who took the lead on investigating the on-campus reaction to the war also rejoiced Wednesday as they watched Shafik become the third Ivy League president pushed from her post following a grilling by the House Education Committee.

“THREE DOWN, so many to go,” Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) said in a statement. She was referring to Shafik, former Harvard President Claudine Gay and former University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill, both of whom she had raked over the coals during harsh questioning in December.

“During Shafik’s presidency, a disturbing wave of antisemitic harassment, discrimination, and disorder engulfed Columbia university’s campus,” Chair Virginia Foxx (R-N.C), who grilled Shafik and other Columbia leaders at a high-profile April hearing, said in a statement. “Jewish students and faculty have been mocked, harassed, and assaulted simply for their identity. Every student has the right to a safe learning environment. Period. Yet, flagrant violations of the law and the university rules went unpunished.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who visited Columbia in April alongside Foxx at the height of the protests after Shafik’s congressional appearance, also cheered her resignation and the “probing” questions asked by the committee. He was echoed by a chorus of Republicans, from South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott to New York Rep. Mike Lawler .

Some Democrats, though quieter across the board, hailed the move as good news for Jewish students. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), who joined a group of other Jewish Democrats at Columbia in April to condemn incidents of antisemitism, said on X that Shafik “failed to demonstrate the moral clarity and leadership incumbent upon a university president.”

And while Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul sidestepped questions about Shafik’s exit, she told reporters Thursday she will personally call all the college presidents across the state to ask: “What are you doing to protect your students on campus?”

Maya Kaufman contributed to this report.