Columbia president Minouche Shafik urges ‘soul searching’ after anti-Israel campus protests

Columbia University president Minouche Shafik urged other university higher-ups to “engage in serious soul searching” over the fallout from the campus protests in a new op-ed about campus free speech.

“We must do a better job of defining the boundaries between the free speech rights of one part of our community and the rights of others to be educated in a place free of discrimination and harassment,” Shafik, 61, wrote in the Financial Times.

Shafik — who was appointed as Columbia’s 20th president in July 2023, and was formally inaugurated just three days before the Hamas terror attack — had made headlines for several weeks as the Morningside Heights campus became ground zero for a wave of anti-Israel tent encampments.

In the new op-ed, Shafik claimed that the majority of the campus activists are “passionate, intelligent and committed” — and blamed the chaos and hateful rhetoric on “the actions and antisemitic comments of some.”

The first tent encampment emerged on a Columbia lawn in mid-April, on the same day that Shafik delivered flaky testimony on campus antisemitism before the House Education and Workforce Committee.

During the height of the protests, Shafik faced serious scrutiny — and even calls to resign — from both sides of the political aisle when she initially appeared to cave to the protesters.