In February, Columbia University President Nemat Shafik told the school’s Senate that she sensed a “low level of trust” in the administration.
You have the feeling, said Dr. Shafik that “the government is the enemy,” according to the minutes of her meeting with the Senate.
While the campus Dr. Shafik distrusted two months ago, the relationship is now approaching estrangement.
The University Senate is expected to vote, possibly as early as Wednesday, on a resolution that would allow Dr. Shafik is being censured in response to her testimony before Congress and the arrests of more than 100 student protesters.
A draft of the resolution circulated on Monday accused Dr. Shafik accused of violating “the fundamental requirements of academic freedom,” ignoring faculty leadership and perpetrating an “unprecedented attack on student rights.”
The resolution is expected to be introduced by two members of the 111-seat Senate in a meeting on Wednesday. It explicitly states that the resolution is not a call for Dr. Shafik’s actions, but that the resolution also calls for criticism from other university officials, including Claire Shipman and David Greenwald, chairmen of Columbia’s Board of Trustees.
When asked for comment on the proposed resolution, a Columbia spokesperson issued a statement: “President Shafik is focused on de-escalating the rancor on Columbia’s campus. She works collaboratively with members of the faculty, administration and board of trustees, as well as state, city and community leaders across campus and appreciates their support.”
If such a vote were adopted, it would be largely symbolic. The Senate, made up of faculty, students and administrators, does not have the authority to remove a president. And Dr. Shafik, who calls himself Minouche, appears to retain the support of the university’s board of trustees. Ms. Shipman and Mr. Greenwald testified with her before Congress and reiterated their conciliatory stance toward House Republicans.
But a vote of no confidence, whether passed or not, reflects the deep anger among faculty members over the arrests of student protesters that Dr. Shafik, according to faculty members, ordered the order without proper consultation with the Executive Committee of the University Senate.
“I have the feeling,” said David E. Pozen, a law professor, “that a very broad segment of the faculty, with very different views on the situation in Gaza and Israel, believe that President Shafik’s recent actions are alarming.”
Professors are also outraged by her testimony before Congress last Wednesday in which she said she had capitulated to the demands of conservative Republicans on issues of academic freedom. And they are in disbelief that her office disclosed to Congress information about pending internal investigations of faculty members that is normally confidential.
Not all teachers are on board.
Dr. Andrew R. Marks, chairman of the department of physiology at Columbia University School of Medicine and a member of the executive committee of the university’s Senate, said that anti-Semitism was on campus, not Dr. Shafik’s leadership is the problem.
“I want her to succeed,” he said. “I want her to do all this and get us out of this mess.”
Dr. Shafik was an unusual choice for president. Although Dr. Shafik, an economist who was president of the London School of Economics for six years, spent most of her career at the International Monetary Fund, the Bank of England and the World Bank. She had little connection to Columbia.
And the mood was already tense before the hearing. In a letter dated April 5, 23 faculty members warned Dr. Shafik said that by agreeing to appear before Congress she would be entering into a “political theater of a new McCarthyism.”
As predicted, the hearing brought no improvement. Her complaints included that she did not vigorously defend academic freedom, but she agreed that some controversial phrases – such as “from river to sea” – could warrant discipline.
Dr. Shafik has “put academic freedom and the faculty at Columbia University under scrutiny,” said Irene Mulvey, national president of the American Association of University Professors, a national group that supports academics.
Following the student arrests, more than 50 of the law school’s 90 full-time faculty members released a letter Sunday condemning Dr. Shafik condemned for sending police to campus and suspending more than 100 student protesters.
A number of Colombian affiliates — the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia, the Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute and the head of Union Theological Seminary — have also denounced the decision.
There was also consternation about it Columbia’s decision to disclose to Congress internal information about the professors under investigation, the same type of details that Harvard refused to share with the committee.
In a private letter dated April 16, the day before the hearing, Columbia provided the House committee with details about eight professors and one teaching assistant who are under investigation for alleged violations of the university’s anti-discrimination policies.
One of these professors, Dr. Joseph Massad, Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, According to the letter to the House of Representatives, obtained by The New York Times, he was not informed of the pending investigation by an outside investigator.
Nevertheless, Dr. Shafik during the hearing asked specific questions about Dr. Massad and an article he wrote in The Electronic Intifada, published the day after the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
It described how Hamas paragliders overwhelmed Israel’s vaunted defenses, dealing what Dr. Massad, who is of Palestinian descent, described it as a “death blow”. The adjectives used in the piece, including “fantastic,” were interpreted as support for the invasion.
As the representative Elise Stefanik Dr. When pressed on the university’s response to the article, Dr. Shafik responded. Shafik: “He was approached by his department head and his dean.”
“And what was he told?” asked Ms. Stefanik.
“That this language was unacceptable,” replied Dr. Shafik.
Dr. Massad, who has been the subject of controversy on campus, said he has been the target of death threats since the hearing.
In a statement, Columbia acknowledged that the university “generally does not disclose ongoing investigations, including to protect complainants.”
But it said: “In this case, the interest of Congress required that the university do so.”
The statement continued: “Representative Stefanik’s direct questioning about this matter required Professor Shafik to provide accurate information about the investigation.”
But for many of the professors, the breach of confidentiality amounted to a public trial without them having the opportunity to defend themselves.
Katherine Franke, a law professor at Columbia University, was also identified as a subject of investigation in the letter and during the hearing.
On social media, she demanded that Dr. Shafik apologized for not correcting the record when Ms. Stefanik, a Republican from New York, claimed she had made an inappropriate comment about Israeli students – an accusation that Ms. Franke leveled at Dr. Shafik accused knew it was wrong.
Albert Bininachvili, an associate professor of political science, was also on the list, apparently following a student’s complaint that he had made anti-Semitic comments against Jewish students.
Dr. Bininachvili, whose name was not mentioned at the hearing, said in an interview that the allegations were “completely unfounded, absurd, absurd and ridiculous.”
“I am a devoted Jew and come from a practicing Jewish family. Six members of my family died in the Holocaust,” said Dr. Bininakhvili. “Even today, as we speak, several members of my extended family live in Israel and serve in the IDF.”
According to the American Association of University Professors, Dr. Shafik’s handling of student arrests also did not follow rules and procedures.
The group said that Dr. Shafik violated a long-standing law that requires the university to “consult” the Senate Executive Committee before calling police to campus.
James Applegate, a professor of astronomy and a member of the committee, said the group was contacted by university management last Wednesday afternoon, a day before police were called.
After this meeting, the Executive Committee wrote an email, said Dr. Applegate. He described the email from memory: “We call on the government to engage the demonstrators in a good dialogue to bring the protest to a peaceful end with all deliberate speed.” We do not support a police presence on campus at this time. “
The email was sent to administration around 6 p.m. on Wednesday, and Dr. Applegate said he received no further official word until the next day, when he was told police had been called in.
Mr Pozen, a constitutional law expert, said the action had backfired.
“If the call to police last Thursday was intended to protect Jewish students, it appears to have had the opposite effect,” he said. “The first camp was peaceful for a long time. The protests that followed the takedown brought a lot of outraged new people to campus and were much more volatile.”
Even Ms. Stefanik, the Dr. In an attempt to appease Shafik, she has called for her resignation, which would follow the resignations of the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Pozen said he didn’t believe the law school was Dr. wants to oust Shafik.
“I believe that most members of the law school want to focus on improving the university’s policies rather than removing a new president and giving Stefanik another scalp,” he said.
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2024-04-22 21:43:02
www.nytimes.com
