Last week, Columbia University President Minouche Shafik announced her resignation as lawsuits have begun to hit colleges and universities for enabling antisemitic protests last spring. She is now the fifth president of an Ivy League university who has resigned or stepped down since pro-Palestinian protests erupted on college campuses last fall. Others included the University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill, Harvard University President Claudine Gay, and Martha Pollack, the president of Cornell University. Peter Salovey, the president of Yale, stepped down in June.
Shafik was widely criticized for her inability to address antisemitism at Columbia and her timid response to the pro-Palestinian encampment on campus, which caused chaos and disruptions for weeks. Some of the protesters even illegally occupied an academic building and held a janitor hostage — a tactic that seems straight out of the terrorist group Hamas’ playbook. Rather than shutting down the encampment, the university moved all classes online and later canceled the school’s main commencement ceremony, a significant blow to students and their families, who deserved a celebration for such an important life milestone.
Pro-Palestinian protesters established similar “Gaza Solidarity Encampments” at several other prestigious colleges and universities, compromising the safety of many Jewish students. University administrators were either unwilling or incompetent to fulfill their duties, including maintaining law and order, addressing antisemitism, and protecting Jewish students.
The pro-Palestinian protests on campuses and university leaders’ inadequate responses have triggered a donor revolt. Former governor and current ambassador to China Jon Huntsman notified Penn that “the Huntsman Foundation will close its checkbook
