Columbia University is a sinking ship, and President Minouche Shafik is getting out while she still can.

Shafik, who has only been Columbia University’s president since January 2023, announced on Wednesday evening that she was stepping down from her post – effective immediately.

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— Eliana Johnson (@elianayjohnson) August 15, 2024

“I write with sadness to tell you that I am stepping down as president of Columbia University effective August 14, 2024,” Shafik wrote in an email to members of the Columbia community on Wednesday evening. “However, it has also been a period of turmoil where it has been difficult to overcome divergent views across our community. This period has taken a considerable toll on my family, as it has for others in our community. Over the summer, I have been able to reflect and have decided that my moving on at this point would best enable Columbia to traverse the challenges ahead. I am making this announcement now so that new leadership can be in place before the new term begins.”

Yes, let us all remember how hard this entire period of time has been on Shafik, who couldn’t find her backbone with both hands, as we all found out when she testified to Congress.

Remember, this is the same woman who watched the campus of her Ivy League university turn into a pro-Hamas tent city while Jewish students were openly discriminated against and a Jewish professor was locked out of campus. But yes, she has “reflected” on what she wants to do now, and the answer is get the hell away from Columbia. Congresswoman Elise Stefanik can rightly claim another victory.
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The whole post reads:

THREE DOWN, so many to go.

As I have said consistently since her catastrophic testimony at the Education and Workforce Committee hearing, Columbia University’s President Minouche Shafik’s failed presidency was untenable and that is was only a matter of time before her forced resignation. After failing to protect Jewish students and negotiating with pro Hamas terrorists, this forced resignation is long overdue. We will continue to demand moral clarity, condemnation of antisemitism, protection of Jewish students and faculty, and stronger leadership from American higher education institutions.

When Shafik resigned yesterday, it was only 20 days until fall semester begins. The new interim president isn’t going to have an easier time of it.

The Ivy League listed Katrina Armstrong as interim president, according to the university’s website. Armstrong, a doctor of medicine, has served as executive vice president for the health and biomedical sciences department at Columbia and chief executive officer of the medical campus.

Shafik says she’ll be working with Armstrong “to ensure an orderly transition.”

“Even as tension, division, and politicization have disrupted our campus over the last year, our core mission and values endure and will continue to guide us in meeting the challenges ahead,” Shafik’s letter said.

Armstrong said in a letter to the university community that she is “deeply honored” to begin her new role just 20 days before the fall semester starts.

“As I step into this role, I am acutely aware of the trials the University has faced over the past year. We should neither understate their significance, nor allow them to define who we are and what we will become,” Armstrong said. “The familiar excitement and promise of a new academic year are informed this year by the presence of change and continuing concerns, but also by the immense opportunity to look forward, to join together for the laudable mission we are here to serve, and to become our best selves individually and institutionally.”

Let’s see – what sort of mess is Shafik leaving behind at Columbia? For starters, thanks to District Attorney Alvin Bragg, nearly all of the protestors who were arrested after the invasion, takeover, and barricading (not to mention temporary hostage-taking) of Hamilton Hall had their charges dismissed. What did we learn? No student will be punished at Columbia.

If anyone needed more proof of that, remember Columbia student Khymani James, who recorded himself saying that “Zionists don’t deserve to live” while on a Zoom meeting with Columbia officials, and was eventually banned from campus for his remarks? He may be welcomed back at Columbia this fall.

NEW: Remember His Fantasies of ‘Murdering Zionists’? Now, Columbia Won’t Say Whether He’s Returning to Class as It Locks Down Campus Ahead of Fall Semester.@FreeBeacon w/@aaronsibarium https://t.co/7kUTR0B6aJ

— Jessica Costescu (@JessicaCostescu) August 12, 2024

Columbia said in April that it was banning James, who told his social media followers to be “grateful” that he was not “murdering Zionists,” from its Morningside Heights campus. It announced an “interim suspension” and indicated disciplinary proceedings are underway.

“We initiated disciplinary proceedings which encompass this and additional potential violations of university policies,” a Columbia spokesman said in April.

Now, as students prepare for the fall semester, the university won’t say whether James will be among them, telling the Washington Free Beacon in a policy that officials appear to abide by selectively that the school does not “comment on individual cases due to privacy concerns.” A Columbia spokeswoman did not respond to a request for an explanation given that the school provided comment on James’s case just months ago.

But signs indicate that James, who served as a leader of the unlawful tent encampment that disrupted university life at the close of the last academic year, is poised to return to campus.

He is listed as a Columbia College student in the school’s online directory and retains an active university email.

What do you have to do to be disciplined at Columbia? Not be a student, and get caught red-handed. Three deans who were photographed sending pretty awful text messages mocking speakers talking about Jewish life on campus were removed from their offices, while a fourth one managed to keep his job after apologizing. Those three deans resigned last week – yet another Shafik mess that interim president Armstrong will have to deal with.

The deans, Susan Chang-Kim, Cristen Kromm and Matthew Patashnick, were removed from power in July after their actions during a May 31 panel discussion about Jewish life at an alumni event. But the deans were not fired.

In a letter to the university community last month, Columbia President Minouche Shafik said the “senior administrators in Columbia College engaged in very troubling text message exchanges” and committed to holding them responsible.

“The incident revealed behavior and sentiments that were not only unprofessional, but also, disturbingly touched on ancient antisemitic tropes,” Shafik said in the letter. “Whether intended as such or not, these sentiments are unacceptable and deeply upsetting, conveying a lack of seriousness about the concerns and the experiences of members of our Jewish community that is antithetical to our University’s values and the standards we must uphold in our community.”

A fourth official involved in the text messages, Josef Sorett, the dean of Columbia College, remained in his position after publicly apologizing for his actions. The other deans did not publicly apologize.

Clearly, Shafik was a poor leader who either could not or would not stamp out anti-Semitism on campus by making examples out of students or faculty. And now, she’s bailing. After all, because so few students faced consequences for their actions last spring, guess what’s coming back this fall?

“What we will see [is] the students will continue their activism, will continue doing what they’ve done in conventional and unconventional ways. So not only protests, not only encampments, kind of any — any available means necessary to push Columbia to divest from from Israel,” said Mahmoud Khalil, student negotiator on behalf of Columbia University Apartheid Divest.

“And we’ve been working all this summer on our plans, on what’s next to pressure Columbia to listen to the students and to decide to be on the right side of history,” Khalil added.

These jackasses tested the waters over the summer during alumni weekend, and what did Shafik do? Nothing. She wanted a “dialogue” with the protestors. So of course these anti-Semitic Hamas LARPers are ready to make a comeback – and if they are allowed to make a comeback, you just know what obnoxious little shits they’re going to make of themselves on October 7, 2024.

With now-former President Shafik gone, will the administration of Columbia change at all? Have they learned anything from the past several months? Will lawsuits be the only way this comes to an end, as we are seeing at UCLA? Professor Shai Davidai – the professor who was banned from campus during the spring – has vowed to counter-protest at Columbia. Will anyone from the faculty or administration stand with him?

What is the next academic year is going to look like at @Columbia?

Same and different.

Same because the terrorist-supporters are amping up their actions.

Different because this time we are going to fight back.

Come join me at every counter-protest.

We're taking our… pic.twitter.com/CxQx8k58TF

— Shai Davidai (@ShaiDavidai) August 13, 2024

My guess? No, nothing will be learned. This will end in lawsuits. Academia has become so heavily steeped in anti-Semitism, that the only way to purge it is to make it financially painful for faculty and administrations to explicitly or tacitly allow anti-Semitism. Minouche Shafik is quitting because she doesn’t want to be held accountable when Columbia University tries to burn itself down this fall. And unless the new interim president has a different mindset and an actual backbone, then Columbia University is going to self-destruct.

Featured image: original Victory Girls art by Darleen Click