Israel After Gaza protests: President of Columbia University resigns

The president of New York's prestigious Columbia University, Nemat "Minouche" Shafik, has resigned with immediate effect following persistent criticism of her handling of pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus. During her approximately one-year tenure, important progress had been made for the university, but it had also been a "time of turmoil", Shafik explained. This period had placed a "considerable burden" on her family and many in the university community. She therefore decided to resign after careful consideration over the summer, Shafik said.

There had been massive pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University in the spring. There was a protest camp on campus, and a building was also temporarily occupied and damaged. Shafik was criticized for giving the protests too much freedom and for not taking sufficient action against anti-Semitism on campus. The pro-Palestinian side, in turn, criticized her for ultimately calling the police to crack down on the protests. There were numerous arrests.

The protests at many universities since the beginning of the Gaza war last October also reflected the division in US society over the Middle East conflict. Academic institutions have struggled to maintain a balance between freedom of expression and discrimination, the right to protest and the security needs of the Jewish minority, for example. The handling of the protests was one of the reasons why the heads of the elite universities Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania resigned.