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 school, Columbia’s interim president stepped down Friday evening—a transfer that federal officers praised, although it might add to the upheaval on the Ivy League establishment that’s going through criticism on a number of fronts, from the federal authorities to school to college students.
Katrina Armstrong, who has served because the interim president since final August, is returning to her earlier put up main the establishment’s Irving Medical Heart, in line with the Friday announcement.
In a quick assertion, she stated it had been a “singular honor to guide Columbia College on this essential 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 group shifting ahead.” Claire Shipman, a former broadcast journalist and a co-chair of Columbia’s Board of Trustees, will take over as appearing 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 warfare in opposition to 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” in opposition to Jewish college students on campus. Trump’s antisemitism job power, which was fashioned by government order in early February, then demanded the college implement numerous sweeping reforms, together with restructuring its disciplinary course of below the Workplace of the President, increasing the authority of its campus safety power and putting its Center East, South Asian and African Research division into receivership.
— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) March 29, 2025
The college introduced every 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 educational 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 school members obtained by Bari Weiss’s information outlet, The Free Press, Armstrong advised college members that most of the modifications the college had promised the antisemitism job power wouldn’t come to go. She stated 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 below 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 modifications applied, with the total help of Columbia’s senior management workforce 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 job 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 in the present day, particularly in gentle 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 Job Drive to Fight Anti-Semitism,” the assertion learn.
Whereas many college 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 college; in a latest Inside Greater Ed article, Michael Thaddeus, vice chairman of the campus’s American Affiliation of College Professors chapter, stated she was some of the open leaders he had labored with in his time at Columbia.
Shipman, now the appearing 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 below “disaster circumstances.”
However one AAUP chief famous in an e mail to Inside Greater Ed that, although he was personally stunned that Armstrong stepped down, it should do little to vary the AAUP’s ongoing work to oppose Trump’s campaign in opposition to increased schooling.
“Katrina Armstrong’s resignation modifications virtually nothing,” wrote Marcel Agüeros, Columbia AAUP’s chapter secretary. “For the previous two years, we now have been advocating for a better position for college within the decision-making processes of the college. That, and defending our college and all universities in opposition to undesirable and certain 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 precipitated irreparable injury.
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 slightly over a yr, stepped down in August. Shafik resigned after backlash from each pro-Palestinian college students and school 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 college to advance our mission, implement wanted reforms, defend our college students, and uphold educational freedom and open inquiry,” Shipman stated in a information launch. “Columbia’s new everlasting president, when that particular person is chosen, will conduct an applicable assessment of the College’s management workforce and construction to make sure we’re greatest positioned for the long run.”
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 shall be watching intently.”