Columbia University President Minouche Shafik is facing intense pressure and calls for her resignation in the aftermath of protests decrying the war in Gaza that have roiled the campus.
Here’s what to know.
Who is Columbia University President Minouche Shafik?
Shafik, an Egyptian-born economist, became the 20th president of Columbia in July last year. Her family fled Egypt when she was 4 during the economic and political upheaval of the 1960s, according to her Columbia biography. She holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and politics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, a master’s in economics from the London School of Economics and a doctorate from Oxford University.
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She has worked at top financial institutions including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Bank of England. Before joining Columbia, she was president of the London School of Economics.
“What set Minouche apart as a candidate,” Columbia board of trustees chair Jonathan Lavine said in a statement announcing her appointment, “is her unshakable confidence in the vital role institutions of higher education can and must play in solving the world’s most complex problems.”
She is married to molecular biologist Raffael Jovine, according to her profile.
What is happening at Columbia University?
The Israel-Gaza war has galvanized student protesters, with those at Columbia demanding that the university divest from corporations doing business with Israel and end its dual-degree program with Tel Aviv University.
In November, the university suspended Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) as official student groups, saying that they violated campus policies by holding an unauthorized event. The groups said the move was an “act of censorship and intimidation.”
In early April, Columbia suspended some students and hired private investigators to look into a campus event that it said featured speakers known to support violence. It also notified the FBI, Shafik said.
On April 18, more than 100 protesters were arrested after Shafik summoned police to the campus to clear an encampment. She described her decision as an “an extraordinary step,” citing campus safety. The arrests sparked a wave of campus unrest across the country, with protests and arrests at institutions nationwide.
After negotiations with the Columbia administration failed to reach a resolution, protesters occupied a building on campus, Hamilton Hall, early Tuesday — barricading themselves inside and renaming it in honor of Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old girl killed in Gaza.
Later that night, Shafik requested that New York police clear people from the encampments on Columbia’s lawns and from Hamilton Hall, saying the university had “no choice” but to call the police after demonstrators smashed windows and blocked doors. In her letter, she also asked police to maintain a presence on campus through at least May 17 — past the date of Columbia’s graduation ceremony — to “maintain order and ensure encampments are not reestablished.”
In a major show of force, police officers in body armor and riot shields entered Hamilton Hall on Tuesday night through its windows and front doors, removing protesters with their hands zip-tied behind their backs. New York police later said they arrested 109 people at the university.
Columbia has issued suspension notices to protesters and threatened to expel those who occupied the building. The school has said final exams and academic activities for the rest of the semester will be fully remote.
Why are people calling for Shafik’s resignation?
Shafik’s move to call the police and suspend protesters has drawn scrutiny, anger and disappointment from students and faculty — while several Republican lawmakers have accused her of not taking rapid action against protesters and not doing enough to make Jewish students feel safe on campus.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and a group of GOP lawmakers called for Shafik’s resignation on a recent visit to the Columbia campus. “I am here today joining my colleagues and calling on President Shafik to resign if she could not immediately bring order to this chaos,” Johnson said.
The university’s governing board has continued to back her. “The Columbia University Board of Trustees strongly supports President Shafik as she steers the university through this extraordinarily challenging time,” it said in a statement.
The Columbia University senate, which includes faculty, students and others, voted April 26 to create a task force to examine the school administration’s leadership.
What has happened to other university presidents?
The presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard resigned in recent months following a December hearing on campus antisemitism held by the Republican-led House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill stepped down in December after intense criticism of her testimony, in which she declined to state plainly that a call for genocide against Jews would violate the university’s code of conduct.
Harvard President Claudine Gay followed suit weeks later, after a backlash to similar remarks during the hearing and amid scrutiny over allegations of plagiarism. An independent review of her work found that she did not engage in research misconduct.
