Katrina Armstrong took on the highest place at Columbia after her predecessor, Minouche Shafik, stepped down amid backlash for her response to campus protests.
Sirin Samman/Columbia College
After agreeing to the Trump administration’s sweeping calls for after which showing to backtrack to college, Columbia’s interim president stepped down Friday evening—a transfer that federal officers praised, although it could add to the upheaval on the Ivy League establishment that’s going through criticism on a number of fronts, from the federal authorities to college to college students.
Katrina Armstrong, who has served because the interim president since final August, is returning to her earlier publish main the establishment’s Irving Medical Heart, in line with the Friday announcement.
In a short assertion, she mentioned it had been a “singular honor to steer Columbia College on this necessary and difficult time … However my coronary heart is with science, and my ardour is with therapeutic. That’s the place I can greatest serve this College and our neighborhood transferring ahead.” Claire Shipman, a former broadcast journalist and a co-chair of Columbia’s Board of Trustees, will take over as performing president whereas the college begins a nationwide seek for a everlasting chief.
The management shake-up comes after weeks of turmoil at Columbia because the Trump administration has waged battle towards the Ivy League establishment, stripping it of $400 million in federal contracts for what it calls Columbia’s “continued inaction within the face of persistent harassment” towards Jewish college students on campus. Trump’s antisemitism activity power, which was shaped by govt order in early February, then demanded the college implement plenty of sweeping reforms, together with restructuring its disciplinary course of underneath the Workplace of the President, increasing the authority of its campus safety power and inserting its Center East, South Asian and African Research division into receivership.
🚨 🚨One other resignation. That’s SIX DOWN. And so many to go. https://t.co/9VzVnuVoq3
— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) March 29, 2025
The college introduced per week in the past that it might adjust to the calls for, to the frustration of critics who argued that the calls for could also be illegal and that giving in to them undermines tutorial freedom and free speech. On CNN, Training Secretary Linda McMahon praised Armstrong, saying she had had productive conversations with the then-interim president and that Columbia was “heading in the right direction” to having its funding restored.
However in line with a transcript of a digital assembly between Armstrong and college members obtained by Bari Weiss’s information outlet, The Free Press, Armstrong informed school members that lots of the adjustments the college had promised the antisemitism activity power wouldn’t come to cross. She mentioned there could be “no change” to masking and admissions insurance policies, that the MESAAS division wouldn’t be positioned right into a receivership, and that the disciplinary course of wouldn’t transfer underneath the Workplace of the President.
Armstrong seemingly denied these claims in a press release Tuesday, writing, “Let there be no confusion: I decide to seeing these adjustments applied, with the complete help of Columbia’s senior management staff and the Board of Trustees … Any suggestion that these measures are illusory, or lack my private help, is unequivocally false.”
Her sudden resignation was met with enthusiasm from the federal antisemitism activity power, which appeared to suggest in a press release launched Friday evening that her management would have impeded the duty power’s skill to maneuver towards a decision with Columbia.
“The motion taken by Columbia’s trustees as we speak, particularly in mild of this week’s regarding revelation, is a crucial step towards advancing negotiations as set forth within the pre-conditional understanding reached final Friday between the College and the Process Pressure to Fight Anti-Semitism,” the assertion learn.
Whereas many school had strongly opposed Columbia’s alternative to present in to the Trump administration’s calls for, Armstrong seemed to be typically well-liked among the many school; in a latest Inside Larger Ed article, Michael Thaddeus, vp of the campus’s American Affiliation of College Professors chapter, mentioned she was one of the vital open leaders he had labored with in his time at Columbia.
Shipman, now the performing president, additionally praised Armstrong’s management in that article, calling her an “distinctive chief” who “got here in to assist us heal and get our campus so as” and who’s expert at working underneath “disaster circumstances.”
However one AAUP chief famous in an e mail to Inside Larger Ed that, although he was personally shocked that Armstrong stepped down, it’ll do little to vary the AAUP’s ongoing work to oppose Trump’s campaign towards increased training.
“Katrina Armstrong’s resignation adjustments nearly nothing,” wrote Marcel Agüeros, Columbia AAUP’s chapter secretary. “For the previous two years, we’ve got been advocating for a better position for school within the decision-making processes of the college. That, and defending our college and all universities towards undesirable and sure illegal interference by the federal authorities, stays our North Star.”
The AAUP chapter at Columbia final week sued the Trump administration in an effort to revive the $400 million in funding. The lawsuit argues that the funding freeze was a “coercive tactic” that’s already brought on irreparable harm.
Clare Shipman joined the Columbia board in 2013.
Shipman would be the third chief of Columbia in 9 months; Armstrong took over the position when Minouche Shafik, who had led the New York establishment for a little bit over a 12 months, stepped down in August. Shafik resigned after backlash from each pro-Palestinian college students and college and Republican lawmakers for a way she dealt with pro-Palestinian encampments at Columbia. Shipman testified earlier than Congress with Shafik final April at a listening to about antisemitism at Columbia.
“I assume this position with a transparent understanding of the intense challenges earlier than us and a steadfast dedication to behave with urgency, integrity, and work with our school to advance our mission, implement wanted reforms, defend our college students, and uphold tutorial freedom and open inquiry,” Shipman mentioned in a information launch. “Columbia’s new everlasting president, when that particular person is chosen, will conduct an applicable evaluate of the College’s management staff and construction to make sure we’re greatest positioned for the longer term.”
In a press release, Rep. Tim Walberg, the Michigan Republican who chairs the Home Training and the Workforce Committee, warned, “Ms. Shipman, whereas we want you all good success, we can be watching intently.”
