Columbia U Interim President Resigns, Second Departure Post Oct. 7 Massacre And Campus Pro-Hamas Protests
“Columbia’s Board of Trustees announced today that Interim President Katrina A. Armstrong is returning to lead the University’s Irving Medical Center.”
With Katrina A. Armstrong stepping aside, Columbia University will have its third president since the October 7th attacks. Third time’s a charm? Not really, because the new acting president, Claire Shipman, will only be in office until the board of trustees hires a new one.
What an absolute clown show.
BREAKING: Columbia Interim President Katrina Armstrong is stepping down and returning to her position as head of the Medical Center.
Board of Trustees Co-Chair Claire Shipman has been named Acting President.
“Shipman (’86CC, MIA ’94) has served as Co-Chair since 2023, and has… pic.twitter.com/8upqMOV0MH
— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) March 29, 2025
From Columbia’s Office of Public Affairs:
Shipman Named Acting President
Columbia’s Board of Trustees announced today that Interim President Katrina A. Armstrong is returning to lead the University’s Irving Medical Center. Board of Trustees Co-Chair Claire Shipman has been appointed Acting President, effective immediately, and will serve until the Board completes its presidential search.
“Dr. Armstrong accepted the role of interim president at a time of great uncertainty for the University and worked tirelessly to promote the interests of our community,” said David J. Greenwald, Chair of the Board of Trustees. “Katrina has always given her heart and soul to Columbia. We appreciate her service and look forward to her continued contributions to the University,” he added.
Acting President Claire Shipman said, “I assume this role with a clear understanding of the serious challenges before us and a steadfast commitment to act with urgency, integrity, and work with our faculty to advance our mission, implement needed reforms, protect our students, and uphold academic freedom and open inquiry. Columbia’s new permanent president, when that individual is selected, will conduct an appropriate review of the University’s leadership team and structure to ensure we are best positioned for the future.”
One of the likely reasons Armstrong is stepping down is that she was caught on audio last week telling a group of professors that the school was not actually making the changes that the Trump administration has demanded.
The Washington Free Beacon reported:
What Columbia University President Katrina Armstrong Really Told Faculty Members About Changes the School Is Making
Nothing to see here.
That’s what Columbia University president Katrina Armstrong told approximately 75 faculty members who assembled on a Saturday morning Zoom call to hear from her about a letter sent by the school to the Trump administration on Friday outlining a series of steps Columbia says it is taking to address “legitimate concerns raised both from within and without our Columbia community, including by our regulators” about the eruption of anti-Semitism on campus in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks.
Throughout the conversation, which lasted approximately 75 minutes and included Columbia provost Angela Olinto and general counsel Felice Rosan, Armstrong and Olinto downplayed or denied that change was underway, particularly when it came to meeting the Trump administration’s demand to put the school’s Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies department under academic receivership.
“This is not a receivership,” Olinto told the group. “The provost will not be writing or controlling anything. It’s the faculty,” she continued, adding, “Your department is totally independent.”
Columbia’s Middle East Studies department has been a flashpoint in the disputes that have roiled the university since Oct. 7, with critics citing its faculty members as a leading source of anti-Semitism. One of them, Joseph Massad, described the Hamas massacre as “awesome.”
Armstrong went on to say the school had made “no changes” to rules surrounding the sorts of masked protests that plagued the university last year, though Friday’s letter announced that masks are no longer allowed “for the purpose of concealing one’s identity in the commission of violations of University policies or state, municipal, or federal laws.”
In addition to all of this, a student who was expelled from the school over his antisemitic activism was recently seen on campus leading another protest.
BREAKING: Grant Miner, who Columbia said was expelled, is back on campus leading a pro-terror protest, disrupting classes.
Columbia needs to be shut down. There is no hope.
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) March 28, 2025
The rot here is so deep. It’s difficult to see how Columbia could be saved.
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Why does the government give any money to any of these colleges and universities. They charge a fortune in tuition and do not have to pay property taxes. Let them get by on their own like any other business.
Time for the same sort of DoJ pre clearance requirements of the post civil rights era imposed upon some reluctant jurisdictions to be imposed at these institutions and even States such as Maine who persist in defying 21st century non discrimination principles.
There is no one and nothing that can rinse off Columbia enough to bring it to a respectable institution. They have a very healthy endowment that should allow them to resume soiling themselves when needed.
University presidents are usually respected scholars in their field of study. They may not be at the top but they are good enough that the field considers them to be a leader.
That’s not Ms. Shipman.
She’s going to find it very hard to herd the cats at Columbia as the senior faculty will ask, “who are you and why do you think you can stand up to us?”
I know AN answer but some won’t like it. Send some Vincent Vega and Jules Winfield types to the homes of these petulant senior faculty. They can introduce themselves as ‘associates of your Univ President and you do remember your Univ President don’t you’? Then they can have ‘bible study’ together and find a swift but very vigorous resolution to any issues.
Well said.
Sonny and Cher sang about how The Beat Goes On (1967).
The song might be adopted by Columbia as the liberal/deep-state beat goes on,
Claire Shipman, former reporter-ette for ABC, married to Jay Carney, former Time reporter who became mouthpieces for VP Biden and then Obama.
The incestuous-ness of them all: this is how Deep Staters perpetuate themselves.
Who has the job longer: Columbia president or Hamas/Hezbollah official. At least the President of Columbia is not killed on the job, yet.
She also has the option of post-termination employment.
“The rot here is so deep. It’s difficult to see how Columbia could be saved.”
One maximum leader resigns, it’s a correctional change in management.
Two resign, it’s clear the ship is going down and no one wants to be the captain when it does.
Watching a once great university commit suicide is neither fun nor funny. Too bad the trustees and alumni can’t see what everybody else can. There is none so blind as he who will not see.
.
Everything has a finite life. This is an example of it. Columbia is dying.
Other universities will take its place if capitalism is allowed to function. Good students and good academics will vote with their feet. Money will follow.
‘Tis ever thus when nihilism and narcissism overthrow stewardship and husbandry.
Aside from withholding grants from these recalcitrant institutions, I am strongly in favor of taxing endowments. The theoretical arguments are that the debt the graduates will be defaulting on is substantially because of excessive costs and uneconomic degrees – directly related.
Tax rate? Maybe 10% a year?
Does Columbia have only one play in its playbook? Call an audible for goodness sakes.
Her fate was sealed when her faculty meeting comments found their way to the administration. What a fool.
Hamas is proposing a new ceasefire, with the possible release of the last living American hostage. Hamas is saying it’s for Ramadan. It’s really because Gaza men have been demonstrating by the hundreds against Hamas, and with a ceasefire, Hamas can come out of its holes and kill its opposition.
Not acceptable. Let ALL the hostages go & the bodies of those they’ve already murdered. With no exchanges & no IDF pullbacks.
“because Gaza men have been demonstrating by the hundreds against Hamas”
Well, that’s good news I hadn’t heard.
Will complicate things for the “All Gazans support Hamas” crowd, but anything that fosters internal divisions between the guilty and the not-so-guilty should be welcome.
They’re not demonstrating against Hamas because they disapprove of what Hamas did. They’re demonstrating because they support some other pack of terrorists with the same program.
columbia admin:
just b/c a few j 00ws are hurt over this supposed holocaust thing is no reason for us to ban blmplo rioters
I am old enough to remember when Mao, in one of his cultural revolutions, sent university professors into the rice paddies to do stoop labor. At the time, I thought it to be an evil act. I may have to reconsider.
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