Just weeks before the new academic year began, and months after pro-Palestinian demonstrations earned the university national attention, the president of Columbia University in New York tendered his resignation, according to reports released by US media on Wednesday.
Debates concerning US support for Israel in its campaign against Hamas in Gaza revolved around anti-war protests and encampments at Columbia and other US campuses.
The demonstrations at Columbia and other universities, according to critics, turned violent and anti-Semitic. As a result, Columbia President Minouche Shafik and other university presidents were questioned before the US Congress and charged with failing to protect Jewish students.
Protesters, many of whom were Jewish, said that anti-Semitic sentiment was being mistaken for anti-Israel sentiment. Additionally, they claimed that specific claims of hate crimes were being exploited as a diversion from demands for a ceasefire because the number of civilian deaths is rapidly rising.
“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 wrote in an email announcing the move, according to student newspaper the Columbia Spectator.
“I am making this announcement now so that new leadership can be in place before the new term begins.”
Protesters occasionally took over buildings as their encampments and protests spread throughout US universities. Conflicts with the police occurred occasionally, and pro-Israel demonstrators occasionally attacked the encampments.
Before calling the protesters “terrorism,” US House Speaker Mike Johnson had harshly denounced them. On Wednesday, he hailed Shafik’s departure in a statement.
1,198 persons, primarily civilians, were killed in Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel, according to an AFP count of Israeli government numbers.
Additionally, 251 persons were taken prisoner by militants; of these, 111 remain in Gaza, 39 of whom the military claims are deceased.
The health ministry of Gaza reports that Israel’s military onslaught in retaliation has killed at least 39,965 Palestinians; however, the ministry does not break down the number of casualties among civilians and militants.
