Columbia University’s president grapples with an ‘impossible situation’

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! ABC News President Kim Godwin exits, Halle Berry takes to Capitol Hill to talk menopause, and a new survey sheds light on turmoil at Columbia.

- Impossible job. For insight on the student protests that have roiled Columbia University, pick up the latest issue of New York Magazine. The publication partnered with the Columbia Spectator, the university's student-run newspaper that has been lauded for its reporting on the New York campus's crisis. Students opposing Israel's military offensive in Gaza, which has killed 34,000 Palestinians since Hamas's Oct. 7 attack, set up encampments and occupied buildings on the campus, demanding that the university divest from Israel. Others counter-protested in support of Israel and decried anti-Semitism on campus.

As part of the issue, the Spectator ran a poll of Columbia students, faculty, and staff. Among the questions: Should Columbia's president resign?

Minouche Shafik became president of Columbia in July 2023. An economist and World Bank alumna, she came to Columbia from the London School of Economics. She's under an intense spotlight now. Her peers, including former Harvard president Claudine Gay and former University of Pennsylvania president Elizabeth Magill, lost their jobs after testifying before Congress about anti-Semitism on their campuses late last year. The pair did not condemn on-campus anti-Semitism vehemently enough, according to alumni and billionaire donors who later called for their firings. Shafik testified before Congress on the topic last month and emerged, for the most part, unscathed.

But her handling of student protests at Columbia has been another matter. As protests grew, Shafik controversially asked the NYPD to clear the encampments, which officers did in riot gear. The Spectator journalists draw parallels between today's protests and anti-Vietnam War protests in 1968, which led to mass arrests and cemented Columbia's reputation as a home for progressive student movements.

In the Spectator’s survey, students, faculty, and staff shared a variety of perspectives on Shafik's leadership through these tense weeks. Fifty percent said that Shafik should resign—32% because they think she is stifling freedom of speech and 10% because she's done too little to combat anti-Semitism. Only 3% agreed with the statement that "her administration has handled the demonstrations well;" 57% said her decision to authorize the NYPD was unwarranted.

Qualitative responses from survey respondents widely varied; many used the word "spineless." Others expressed understanding for one of the most difficult jobs in America right now: university president. One respondent said that Shafik was in an "impossible situation" which "often happens to women of color who hold positions of power." "Universities need wartime presidents now," another said.

With the semester coming to a close—and now, a cancelled commencement ceremony—Shafik seems to have hung on. But hardly anyone, it seems, is satisfied with her leadership through this crisis. For more, read the Spectator’s reporting.

Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com

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