Columbia President Resigns After Violent Crackdown on Pro-Palestine Student Protests

The president of Columbia University announced her resignation late Wednesday, months after she authorized a violent police crackdown on student demonstrators urging the school to divest from Israel over the country's devastating assault on the Gaza Strip.

Minouche Shafik said in her announcement that recent months have been "a period of turmoil where it has been difficult to overcome divergent views across our community." Dozens of Columbia students were arrested and injured during a Shafik-approved police raid of a campus building in late April.

"This period has taken a considerable toll on my family, as it has for others in our community," said Shafik, whose 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."

Pro-Palestine student organizers at Columbia—a university at the center of the protest movement that swept the country earlier this year—celebrated Shafik's departure but vowed to continue pressuring the institution's leadership to divest from Israel. Students specifically demanded that Columbia drop its Tel-Aviv Global Center project, which also drew backlash from faculty members when it was announced last year.

Shafik was adamant that Columbia "will not divest from Israel."

Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine said in response to Shafik's resignation that "after months of chanting 'Minouche Shafik you can't hide,' she finally got the memo."

"To be clear," the group added, "any future president who does not pay heed to the Columbia student body's overwhelming demand for divestment will end up exactly as President Shafik did."

The Columbia chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace wrote on social media that students "will never forget the sheer violence unleashed upon us by Minouche Shafik, and we will not be placated by her removal as the university's repression of the pro-Palestinian student movement continues."

Mahmoud Khalil, a student negotiator for Columbia University Apartheid Divest, toldThe New York Times on Wednesday that "regardless of who leads Columbia, the students will continue their activism and actions until Columbia divests from Israeli apartheid."

"We want the president to be a president for Columbia students, answering to their needs and demands, rather than answering to political pressure from outside the university," said Khalil.