The Nation: “Good Riddance, Minouche Shafik”

Last week, just before the fall semester was set to begin, Columbia University President Nemat “Minouche” Shafik announced that, after only one year in the role, she would be stepping down effective immediately.

Shafik alluded to a “period of turmoil” that had taken a “considerable toll” on her family. She didn’t mention the sources of that turmoil, or reflect on how she may have disappointed the school community she was supposed to serve. But it was not hard to read between the lines.

No university leader was more associated with the brutal nationwide crackdown on the Gaza solidarity encampments that spread from Columbia to campuses around the world. Shafik’s decision to unleash the NYPD on her own school destroyed her credibility forever.

From last August to this May, I was a master’s student at Columbia Journalism School. I saw Shafik’s entire stint up close. So I know that it’s too easy to confine the story of her demise to this spring’s protests. Instead, you have to look at the whole of her brief, terrible tenure to understand why she’s gone.

On October 4, 2023, Shafik was sworn in as Columbia’s 20th president on the steps of Low Library. She was the university’s first woman and first Arab president, and many students greeted her arrival with enthusiasm. But there were signs of trouble right away. Shafik’s inauguration was overshadowed by multiple protests, from graduate students picketing for fairer wages to a group demanding that the school take real accountability for its role in helping protect Robert Hadden, a Columbia-affiliated gynecologist who sexually abused his patients for decades, from justice.

When Shafik and Columbia University Irving Medical Center CEO Katrina Armstrong (who will now serve as interim president) released a statement about Hadden in September, survivors of Hadden’s abuse immediately rejected it. The victims said that Shafik never personally reached out to them or their lawyer, and that the school was prioritizing wealthy donors over “taking account of the betrayal that Columbia University has committed.” This would become a consistent throughline of Shafik’s presidency.

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Read the full article on The Nation.