Congressional hearings about free speech and anti-semitism at Penn, Harvard, MIT and Columbia have now resulted in the resignation of the third of these Presidents. Yes, Columbia President Nemat Shafik, following Presidents Claudine Gay of Harvard and Liz Magill of Penn out the door, has resigned her post. President President Sally Kornbluth of MIT remains in her job.
The brouhaha began last December when, facing two House panels, three Presidents said that in some cases, depending on context, calls for genocide of the Jews might not violate university regulations. Indeed, this was correct according to a First-Amendment construal of this kind of speech. The problem was that these universities, purporting to adhere to the First Amendment, didn’t really do so for other kinds of speech, so they were really guilty of hypocritical and unequal enforcement. And their presentations on the Hill were stiff and unempathic. Shafik, grilled this April, angered those who said she’d done very little to curb antisemitism on her campus.
Further, Claudine Gay was later accused of serious and multiple incidents of plagiarism, and, in light of all the bad publicity, Harvard gave Gay the boot. Harvard now has now an interim President, Alan Garber, who will run Harvard for the next two years while it looks for a permanent President.
Click below to read the story. Shafik proved hamhanded in the face of pro-Palestinian and antisemitic behavior on campus, with apparently no students being disciplined, including those who stormed and occupied a Columbia building.
Click to read:
An excerpt:
Columbia University’s president, Nemat Shafik, resigned on Wednesday after months of far-reaching fury over her handling of pro-Palestinian demonstrations and questions over her management of a bitterly divided campus.
She was the third leader of an Ivy League university to resign in about eight months following maligned appearances before Congress about antisemitism on their campuses.
Dr. Shafik, an economist who spent much of her career in London, said in a letter to the Columbia community that while she felt the campus had made progress in some important areas, it had also been a period of turmoil “where it has been difficult to overcome divergent views across our community.”
What she means is that she can’t manage to stop violations of campus rules for encampment and behavior by pro-Palestinian students. This is because Columbia won’t discipline violators. A lot of the lack of discipline stems from the attitudes of Columbia faculty, many of whom supported the illegal protests and called for Shafik’s resignation after she called the police to dismantle the local encampment. Caught between Jewish faculty and students on one hand and pro-Palestinian faculty on the other, Shafik was rendered powerless. More:
She added that her resignation was effective immediately, and that she would be taking a job with Britain’s foreign secretary to lead a review of the government’s approach to international development.
The university’s board of trustees named Dr. Katrina A. Armstrong, a medical doctor who has been the chief executive of Columbia’s medical center and dean of its medical school since 2022, as the interim president. The board did not immediately announce a timeline for appointing a permanent leader.
. . . But as much as its sudden end, the brevity of Dr. Shafik’s presidency underscores how profoundly pro-Palestinian demonstrations shook her campus and universities across the country.
Facing accusations that she was permitting antisemitism to go unchecked on campus, Dr. Shafik made a conciliatory appearance before Congress in April that ended up enraging many members of her own faculty. She summoned the police to Columbia’s campus twice, including to clear an occupied building. The moves angered some students and faculty, even as others in the community, including some major donors, said she had not done enough to protect Jewish students on campus.
Dr. Shafik’s tenure was among the shortest in Columbia’s 270-year history, and much of it was a sharp reminder of the challenges facing university presidents, who have sometimes struggled recently to lead upended campuses while balancing student safety, free speech and academic freedom.
Few university leaders were as publicly linked to that dilemma as Dr. Shafik, whose school emerged as a hub of the campus protests that began after the Israel-Hamas war erupted last year.
Those protests, as well as accusations of endemic antisemitism, drew the attention of House Republicans, who orchestrated a series of hearings in Washington starting last year.
But make no mistake about it: the protests will continue this next academic year at Columbia and at other schools. The war in Gaza continues, and Israel is still demonized by many academics (remember that the American Association of University Professors just eliminated their two-decade opposition to academic boycotts, undoubtedly to allow boycotts of Israel).
And so Columbia has a color-coded system to indicate the degree of protest occurring on the campus. This is ridiculous:
To prepare for the possibility of renewed protests in the fall, the university announced a new color-coded system to guide the community on protest risk level on campus, similar to a Homeland Security advisory system. The level was recently set from Green to Orange [JAC: there’s also red], the second-highest, meaning “moderate risk.” Only people with Columbia identification are permitted to enter the central campus, which in the past has been open to the public.
College protesters have vowed to come back stronger than ever to push their main demand that Columbia divest from weapons manufacturers and other companies that profit from the occupation of Palestinian territories.
“Regardless of who leads Columbia, the students will continue their activism and actions until Columbia divests from Israeli apartheid,” said Mahmoud Khalil, a student negotiator on behalf of Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the main protest movement. “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.”
I doubt that Columbia, like Chicago and many other schools, will agree to divest, for that is eliminating institutional neutrality in the investment of college funds. As so long as there are calls for divestment, and the universities refuse to divest, the protests will continue. Coming this fall: Code Red, when almost nobody will be allowed on Columbia’s campus.
Of course free speech, along the lines of the Chicago Prnciples, should reign at all campuses, but there should also be time, place, and manner restrictions so that speech doesn’t impede the functioning of the university (e.g. deplatforming speakers, sit-ins in campus buildings, use of bullhorns during class). So far these restrictions have largely been ignored by schools like Columbia, loath to have officials or police “lay hands” on protestors since that creates bad “optics.”. But if these illegal protests continue, then we can kiss higher education in America goodbye. But who cares? The pro-Palestinian protestors aren’t interested in holding universities to their mission. Rather, they want to bend universities to their own ideology, and many, in the end, want to efface the principles of Western democracy.
[ applause ]
+1. Thunderous level.
One has to admit that pulling in the reins on overwhelming protests by masked students and outside agitators is extraordinarily difficult. In the case of Columbia U and elsewhere, the campus police would be hopelessly outnumbered. City police apparently also have limitations on how much they can get involved since it isn’t their jurisdiction. That plus all manner of risks to the police since wading into these crowds is extremely dangerous to them, and then injuring protestors that fight back tooth and nail also isn’t going to come across well in this country.
The Columbia U president did far too little and far too late, but really this isn’t the sort of thing that most people are prepared to do. We can armchair quarterback all we want, but man, this would be challenging!
If only there were some effective way to aerosolize laxatives…
“The Columbia U president did far too little and far too late, but really this isn’t the sort of thing that most people are prepared to do…”
Most people may not be prepared to do this, but of course most people are not capable of being a college President either. The expectation is that she is significantly stronger and smarter than the average bear in order to justify being in charge and earning a hefty salary, so I don’t think she can be given a pass here.
A captain needs to be able to sail through a storm, and not just the calm waters that any of us could navigate.
1+
Having known many U presidents, some on a personal basis, I can testify that they are not markedly stronger or smarter than professors or executives. Well educated, yes, but that is all.
Ship captains get years of specific training and apprenticeship with a master mariner before they qualify for a major commercial or naval command. Even then when disaster strikes you don’t know how they’ll fare. The sea is cruel and pitiless, like a faculty association. If the ship sinks with heavy loss of life the captain is almost always along the lost.
These college presidents may not have a clue what they’re doing but they do seem to land on their feet after things go pear-shaped. On the other hand they have to contend with an activist professoriate that makes sport of frustrating and undermining the boss which she can’t do anything about, such as flogging them for mutiny. If she has no real authority to bonk heads, it’s not fair to put much responsibility on her shoulders. I’m sure she’s glad to be shut of Columbia before classes resume!
Not to take this sea faring analogy too far (I almost regret using it), but surely she could have done better with what authority and levers she had…she wasn’t just a figurehead. After all, it seems like other presidents (see Dartmouth) were able to deal with these protests without being capsized. You make it seem as if Shafik was going to sea with a leaky boat, holes in the sails and a malfunctioning rudder!
The University of Chicago took down our encampment in the early morning using University Police, and there were no injuries. Properly trained police will not injure demonstrators unless the demonstrators try to injure the police.
+1
The University of Florida permitted hand held signs and speaking but no encampments, bullhorns or carrying on outside permitted areas. Not so hard to do for them.
I imagine if we compared public flagship universities with Ivys we would see a difference in both student behavior and admin response.
Columbia and the others should follow the lead of the Univ of FL. From the news station WUFT:
“The University of Florida set aside recommendations from recent disciplinary hearings to lightly punish some of the college students arrested after pro-Palestinian protests on campus and kicked them all out of school for three to four years. … The SCC recommended one student, Keely Gilwa, receive academic probation. However, the dean’s office issued them a three-year suspension, which prevented them from receiving their master’s degree May 2.”
Ben Sasse, the president of the university, wrote in the WSJ,
Our response to threats to build encampments is driven by three basic truths.
First, universities must distinguish between speech and action. … The heckler gets no veto. The best arguments deserve the best counterarguments. … we draw a hard line at unlawful action. Speech isn’t violence. Silence isn’t violence. Violence is violence. …
Second, universities must say what they mean and then do what they say. Empty threats make everything worse. Any parent who has endured a 2-year-old’s tantrum gets this. You can’t say, “Don’t make me come up there” if you aren’t willing to walk up the stairs and enforce the rules.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-adults-are-still-in-charge-at-the-university-of-florida-israel-protests-tents-sasse-eca6389b
Well put.
“But if these illegal protests continue, then we can kiss higher education in America goodbye.”
Maybe at the Ivy League…but these are becoming increasingly strange and isolated madrassas of activism for disproportionately rich and far left people, which of course is not reflective of the typical college student (or professor) in the US. There are thousands of public institutions for higher education in the US, and most don’t seem to bother with this type of nonsense.
Totally agree! There are plenty of good schools providing a good education, even if they are not considered “elite”. If I never have to hear about “elite” universities again, I will be happy.
Yup. But this isn’t the end of it. The fall semester is coming and there will be more protests or strikes. Are the universities prepared? I can only hope that most campuses will be more interested in teaching and learning than in disgracing themselves, and that the tumult will be limited to the few. Oh, how the elite have fallen.
I do wonder if she would have resigned so readily without having an immediate post as Britain’s foreign secretary for international development. That she was hired in government with the stench she carries around is telling.
Likely she lined up the other job first. Good point.
The NYT reader comments were discouraging: most sided with the protesters, several thought it was sinister that the three resignations were all women (although one commenter replied that the Ivy League was mostly female presidents when the protests began).
Comments on this article are (imho) more reasonable. First one is advocating adherence to Chicago principles.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/15/us/katrina-armstrong-columbia-president.html?unlocked_article_code=1.DE4.Xa_S.P_6SOehiDTfc&smid=url-share
Yes they are different. Thanks for pointing this out.
Will the students be protesting about the dreadful murders and rapes of the Hindus in Bangladesh by their Muslim brethren currently happening?
I doubt it and this would be quite telling of their hypocrisy and possible manipulation by outside forces.
Of course hopefully it will end beforehand but I will bet that this and other gross travesties will escape their notice.
The students likely don’t even know about it.
Some things to note given Jerry’s discussion and the comments:
1. She wasn’t forced out. She suddenly quit. Probably the realization that she couldn’t handle the situation along with the fact that a majority of faculty wanted her out was enough for her.
2. With respect to the faculty who wanted her out-they come in at least 3 colors:protest and divestment sympathizers, those less sympathetic who felt she botched all efforts to deal with the situation and those who felt she didn’t do far enough. My guess is the first group is by far the largest.
3. 3 major hurdles to doing things at Columbia make this unusually hard: Columbia has no neutrality policy, there is a shared governance principle and Senate put in place in the aftermath of 1968 which makes it hard for a president to act unilaterally and there is NO campus police like UofC-the public safety is unarmed and not allowed to use force of any kind. So it is NYPD or nothing.
Given this set of circumstances I wouldn’t want the job under any circumstances…
Thanks for that. Most helpful.