Ding dong, Shafik is gone! Columbia president resigns – and AIM caught reactions on campus
August 15, 2024
The president of Columbia University, Minouche Shafik, is stepping down, and Accuracy in Media took a mobile billboard send a warning message to Columbia students.
Shafik allowed antisemitism to ruin her career. We’re warning college students not to do the same.
This comes thanks in part to the AIM activists who sent a barrage of messages to the Columbia Board of Trustees calling for her resignation.
After AIM activists sent 4,000 emails and more than 1,000 phone calls were made to the Columbia University board of trustees, the university’s president, Minouche Shafik, has finally resigned.
Follow @AccuracyInMedia for updates. pic.twitter.com/2wDSC6eCjD
— Adam Guillette (@adamguillette) August 15, 2024
Her resignation is the result of how Shafik handled of antisemitic protests at the Ivy League college:
Shafik … has faced pressure for her handling of Columbia campus encampments protesting the war between Israel and Hamas.
A lot of that pressure coming from us here at Accuracy in Media. As a London, England, paper puts it:
The October 7 attacks on Israel and subsequent response provoked a heated debate on antisemitism and fair criticism of the Israeli government. Prestigious American universities were accused of allowing antisemitism to run rife on campus.
Run rife is a little too polite. As we’ve detailed over the months, the problems have been substantial. As we said in November 2023:
Once an esteemed institution, Columbia University has fallen prey to the scourge of antisemitism that has taken hold at elite universities across the country.
Nearly two dozen groups at Columbia University signed a joint letter in the wake of an attack on Israel that left 1,200 dead and at least 2,700 wounded. That letter suggested such violence was inevitable, saying, “If every political avenue available to Palestinians is blocked, we should not be surprised when resistance and violence break out.”
This is the level of logic at an Ivy League? Well, yes, it is and those running such colleges are responsible for that attitude. They’ve also got to do something about it.
We also taped the reality of the antisemitism at Columbia that November.
We then returned in February to agitate more directly against the specific antisemites:
Driving down Broadway, the truck displayed names and photos of Columbia affiliates under the words “Columbia’s Leading Antisemites.” The truck also promoted a new website that “features a petition that urges employers to blacklist applicants,” alongside the words “Boycott, Divest, & Sanction These Antisemites.”
Accuracy in Media first deployed the “doxxing truck” to Columbia’s Morningside campus on Oct. 25, 2023, showing the names and faces of Columbia affiliates who were allegedly members of organizations that signed a joint statement in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.
We’re happy to say that this worked too. Several judges insisted they would not hire such antisemites out of the Law School:
A judicial council cleared a group of federal judges who said they wouldn’t hire graduates from Columbia University as law clerks over misconduct charges.
The federal judges said a few months ago that they would not hire students at Columbia University who participated in the anti-Israel protests that took place following the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
Not only did they refuse to hire it was legal that they did. But the Law School at Columbia has had other problems:
Columbia University announced Monday that it had permanently removed three associate deans from their positions, after they texted inappropriate messages during an antisemitism panel in May.
Inappropriate here means “touched on ancient antisemitic tropes.”
Obviously, something needed to be done. So, we here at AIM, did something. Visited campus in March and found that things were worse than ever for Jews. Did some vox populi in April and found that Columbia loves Hamas. Shafik started to react before she was called to Congress to explain herself. Her performance at Congress – like her performance on campus – wasn’t good enough. So we paid her a visit:
During Shafik’s hearing, it became clear that she is either unable or unwilling to stop the vile antisemitism on her campus.
We called on Shafik to resign and took two U-Haul moving trucks to her residence to help her move. On campus, we were confronted by a mob of antisemites who proudly proclaimed their support for terrorists.
We told Fox she’s not fit to serve. The Verge covered our activism. The Daily Wire covered our resignation call.
We returned in June to emphasize just how bad some of the students had been. We exposed an antisemite once again in August. We had to do these last two simply because the Columbia authorities – Minouche Shafik being responsible as the president, obviously – wouldn’t.
It just shouldn’t take eight months for the college to sort out such antisemitism problems. Heck, there shouldn’t be such antisemitism problems at a college, let alone an Ivy League. Allowing the problem and then not solving it for eight months? Yes, the president has to go. She’s gone.
Yes, we’ll take this victory lap.