Will Columbia President Shipman's administration be successful? - opinion

And the saga continues.

I tucked away my phone before climbing up the Chabad House steps around 7:45 p.m. on March 28—only to take my seat at the shabbat table to the tune of, “Didn’t you hear? She just stepped down.” 

That’s right: For the second time since October 7, 2023, a president of Columbia University has relinquished her position.

Importantly, former President Katrina Armstrong assumed an interim role. After former President Shafik’s resignation, Armstrong was recruited from Columbia’s medical school where she served as the Chief Executive Officer of the Irving Medical Center and Executive Vice President of Health and Biomedical Sciences for the University. She was never meant to hold the position indefinitely. Still, abdicating in the middle of the school year was not the expectation. 

While there has been a sense of shock—particularly because the turnover was “effective immediately”—many in my peer groups seem to have found this news disappointing but ultimately not surprising.

As has been documented throughout this school year and in the current semester especially, things are not under control at Columbia. Within the past couple of weeks—even before the news of former President Armstrong stepping down—Columbia has gained even more spotlight, mostly due to the United States federal government’s increasing role in attempting to curtail my school’s rampant case of antisemitism.

Since the apprehension and detainment of Columbia alumnus Mahmoud Khalil on March 9, US immigration authorities have sought to arrest and deport Columbia student Yunseo Chung; and a Columbia doctoral student, Ranjani Srinivasan, self-deported to Canada out of fear that federal officials would take her into custody for reasons similar to those of Khalil. Like Khalil, neither of these students is a US citizen. Chung is a green-card holder from South Korea who was arrested during the recent Milstein Library occupation at Barnard College, and Srinivasan is an Indian national. 

While many believe—and the US media has certainly portrayed—such government actions to be controversial and even reprehensible, this is what we know of Khalil’s situation: He is a non-US citizen who has led and negotiated on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement at Columbia University which has perpetrated a host of unlawful acts including the encampments and Hamilton Hall break-in of spring 2024. He has distributed Hamas-stamped propaganda at my school. The protests he helped organize and lead—which, amongst other things, have called for the globalization of the intifada, “total eradication of Western civilization,” and death to “Amerikkka”—have consisted of vandalism, destruction of property, and even attacks on University staff. Put simply, Mahmoud Khalil is a foreign person to our country who openly sympathizes with terrorists committed to destroying the United States and even advocates terrorism aiming to do so.

Further, more and more evidence is emerging that the pro-Palestine movement that has overtaken American academia is itself an intentional project of Islamist terrorist organizations. Indeed, the extensive findings of researchers like Charles Asher Small at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy and Jonathan Schanzer at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies suggest direct terrorist ties to the organizations coordinating these campus protests. 

When my SIPA-Law School class (co-taught by professors Timothy Naftali and Matthew Waxman) covered 9/11 last week, I could not help but note the irony: We sat in class discussing the most successful Islamist terrorist attack on the United States while collectively failing outside the classroom to see how they have begun to attack us again. 

The horrendous events of September 11 showed us that the United States is not impervious to the efforts of Islamist terrorism. Yet, naively, we continue to look away as they attempt to infiltrate us again over two decades later.

Still, much more has happened within the last few weeks at Columbia. In a letter addressed to (former) President Armstrong and the co-Chairs of the Columbia Board of Trustees, the Trump Administration outlined nine demands for the school to meet in order to discuss reinstating the recently revoked $400 million in federal funds. The next week, Columbia announced that it would comply with the stipulations; this is unsurprising as over one quarter of Columbia’s annual operating revenue is funded by the federal government. The Free Beacon reported, however, that the University administration conveyed in a faculty meeting that they may not, in fact, comply entirely.

This was likely welcome news to many in the student body as the public announcement that the University would conform to the demands was met with a “Mask Monday” protest. For further insight, a survey of the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) student body showed that the majority of respondents were not in favor of adhering to any demand. Many of SIPA’s Jewish students were most disturbed to learn that approximately 75% of our peers that responded to the survey “do not support Columbia complying with” the demand to “formalize, adopt, and promulgate a definition of antisemitism.”

 All of this is to say, again: Things are not under control at this school. So, no, many of us were not surprised to learn that we would see yet another presidential turnover at Columbia. The more palpable feeling has been one of embarrassment. 

As an Ivy League institution, we are supposed to be one of the best universities in the world. That is what we tell people, anyway. It is bad enough, then, that Columbia has descended into this level of chaos since October 7. The fact that this is on display for the entire world to see and scrutinize makes it even worse.

While there are various ways we can understand how antisemitism is against university law, it is clear enough that antisemitism has manifested as bullying on my campus; and bullying, we know, is against university law. It is embarrassing that so many students have broken the University’s rules, but it is more embarrassing that administrators have let them.

Columbia's image changing

Amongst the most humiliating aspects, though, is that Columbia’s image truly is changing because of this. It has been reported that “an unprecedented number of students are gravitating away from Ivy League universities” and toward schools they would not have previously considered. While there are a number of factors contributing to this emerging phenomenon, the post-October 7 campus climate appears to be the biggest driver of this shift.

Plain and simple, people do not want to attend Columbia in its current state. So for the administrators of Columbia (and other Ivy League schools undergoing similar turmoil), the question is: Do you want to be prestigious or not? We are losing the world’s respect—the respect that took such time, dedication, and hard work to build. What’s more, we are losing time to gain it back.

Former President Armstrong has been succeeded by co-Chair of the Columbia Board of Trustees Claire Shipman. Generally, I have heard support for our new president; there is a sense of optimism around her appointment. Importantly, I heard the same rhetoric around both presidents Shafik and Armstrong.

I note this not to predict any particular outcome, but to underscore that the only way to know whether or not this administration will be effective is by observing their actions or lack thereof. Although the reason remains unclear to me and many others, it has been difficult for Columbia’s administration to follow and enforce its own rules. As long as President Claire Shipman is able to reverse this trend, I am certain her administration will be successful.