Columbia University
On 18 January 2023, Columbia University's board of trustees announced Shafik's appointment as president of the university. She became president of Columbia University on 1 July 2023. Her inauguration occurred on 4 October 2023.
After the Gaza war intensified in October 2023, and an altercation concerning an Israeli student led to legal action, Shafik issued a statement saying that if "speech is unlawful or violates University rules, it will not be tolerated". While some, including US House of Representative member Ritchie Torres, and US Congresswoman Kathy Manning, said she should have done more to protect Jewish students from anti-Semitic violence on campus; faculty and graduate workers raised concerns over her decision to suspend pro-Palestine student groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) from the campus for repeatedly violating University policies relating to on campus events.
In November 2023, Shafik was invited to attend the 2023 United States Congress hearing on antisemitism, but declined, citing a scheduling conflict. She later gave testimony before the United States House Committee on Education & the Workforce on 17 April 2024, along with David Greenwald and Claire Shipman, co-chairs of the Trustees of Columbia University. Former presidential advisors and consultants Shailagh Murray, Dana Remus, and Philippe Reines, along with lawyers, political officials, and experts on antisemitism prepared Shafik for the hearing for months.
As a result of campus protests and the campus occupation by pro-Palestinian demonstrators that began on 17 April 2024, Shafik called on the NYPD to clear an encampment established by protesters near the center of the university's campus, and police arrested more than 100 students on 22 April. The same day, she announced that the university had canceled in-person classes to move to hybrid learning. The demonstrations outside Columbia's campus sometimes included pro-Hamas antisemitic hate speech and threats, resulting in protesters targeting some Jewish students.
Shafik established a headquarters to address the protests at the law firm of Covington & Burling near the White House when she was in Washington, D.C., to testify before the United States House Committee on Education & the Workforce. Her actions in ordering the arrests were criticised by the American Association of University Professors, PEN America, president Serene Jones of Union Theological Seminary, and the Columbia College Student Council. Faculty denounced what it called an "unprecedented assault on student rights". Hundreds of Columbia professors staged a walkout and signed onto an open letter criticizing her handling of the demonstrations.
Columbia donor and alumnus Robert Kraft, founder of Columbia's Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, suspended donations to the university, as did billionaire Len Blavatnik, due to beliefs that Columbia was insufficiently preventing campus antisemitism. Republican lawmakers, whom Shafik initially intended to appeal to in her congressional testimony, called for her resignation. These included House Speaker Mike Johnson and at least a dozen members of Congress who claimed that the school failed to protect Jewish students.
Both Democratic and Republican officials joined Representative Elise Stefanik in urging Shafik to resign, including U.S. Senators John Fetterman and Tim Scott, and Representative Jim Banks. Columbia University's senate drafted and circulated a censure resolution against Shafik for abridging "the fundamental requirements of academic freedom" and causing an "unprecedented assault on student rights". A few days later, the university senate stopped short of a censure vote, instead calling out Shafik and her administration for "breaching the due-process rights of students and professors" and called for further investigation into the matter.
On 29 April 2024, Shafik announced that negotiations with student protesters stalled and that the "university will not divest from Israel". She requested NYPD intervention for the second time in two weeks the following day, leading to the arrest of an additional 108 individuals. She also requested an NYPD presence through at least 17 May, two days after the scheduled commencement, which she later cancelled on 6 May. Instead, Shafik conferred degrees via e-mail. The Columbia Faculty of Arts and Sciences initiated a vote of no-confidence on 10 May. The motion criticised Shafik's decisions to have students arrested and impose a campus lock-down with an on-going police presence. It also said her plans to fire and investigate faculty members for comments they made about Israel were "clear violations" of academic freedom. It passed on 16 May, with 65 percent of the 709 professors voting in favor of the resolution.
According to Jason Brownlee, Minouche Shafik's invocation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in her April 29, 2024 statement was legally incoherent but provided "shield and sword for her actions as university president" to justify "pitting cops against demonstrators." Brownlee writes that "Shafik and her peers sought to wrap their suppression of pro-Palestine advocacy in the mantle of America’s civil rights traditions", and thereby "denied pro-Palestine groups’ claim to civil rights of their own."
On 14 August 2024, Shafik resigned from the presidency. Following her resignation, she announced that she would be accepting a role with the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs to chair a review of the British government's approach to international development.
