Columbia University president who called police on pro-Palestinian protesters resigns

Columbia University President Nemat Minouche Shafik announced her resignation in an email on Wednesday evening, leaving the university after a nearly two-year stint plagued by student protests and a highly criticized police crackdown.

Shafik, who oversaw the university’s response to solidarity encampments and other protests related to Israel’s assault on Gaza, which the Gaza Health Ministry operating under Hamas' government says has killed nearly 40,000 people, joins a long list of university administrators and Ivy League presidents to leave their positions.

“This period has taken a considerable toll on my family, as it has for others in our community,” Shafik wrote in the email announcing her resignation was effective immediately. “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.”

Shafik’s decision in mid-April to invite the New York Police Department to raid a peaceful encampment on the university’s quad was seen as a severe escalation, prompting dozens of copycat encampments throughout the country, leading to more than 3,000 arrests nationwide.

Later that month, students occupied a building on campus, drawing media scrutiny and again prompting Shafik to send in the NYPD, this time drawing faculty criticism as an officer discharged a firearm during the raid.

"The students of Columbia will never forget the sheer violence unleashed upon us by Minouche Shafik, and we will not be placated by her removal," the Barnard College-Columbia University chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace wrote in a post to X on Wednesday.

Shafik, who avoided a Congressional hearing on campus antisemitism which led to the resignations of Harvard President Claudine Gay and University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill, faced a no-confidence vote from faculty in May.

Even after campus activities and protests wound down for the summer, Columbia’s campus has remained on “orange level” alert for much of the last several weeks, restricting off-campus guests and closing numerous points of entry.