Important Takeaways:
- Columbia University President Minouche Shafik has resigned from her position, four months after the institution was rocked by campus protests over the war in Gaza.
- Dr Shafik’s resignation comes only a year after she took the position at the private Ivy League university in New York City, and just a few weeks before the autumn semester is due to begin.
- In April, Dr Shafik authorized New York Police Department officers to swarm the campus, a controversial decision that led to the arrests of about 100 students who were occupying a university building.
- The episode marked the first time that mass arrests had been made on Columbia’s campus since Vietnam War protests more than five decades ago.
- Her resignation comes after three Columbia University deans also resigned last week, after text messages showed the group used “antisemitic tropes”, according to a statement by Dr Shafik, while discussing Jewish students.
- US college campuses have been a flashpoint for Gaza war protests since Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, and Israel’s subsequent incursion into the Gaza Strip.
- The presidents of Harvard and UPenn ultimately resigned amid backlash over their handling of campus protests and congressional testimony, including their refusal to say that calling for the deaths of Jews could violate university policy.
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