Columbia University President Nemat Shafik announced her resignation on Wednesday, nearly four months after overseeing the university's response to campus protests over Israel's war on Gaza.

“It was also a time of turmoil, as it was difficult to navigate the differences in viewpoints in our community,” Shafiq said in an email to staff and students. “This period had a negative impact on my family, as it did on others in our community.”

Shafik said her resignation “at this stage will best enable Columbia University to meet the challenges that lie ahead.” She said she was making the announcement so that new leadership could be in place before the start of the new semester.

The university was rocked in April and May when protesters occupied parts of the upper Manhattan campus to protest the deaths of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, resulting in hundreds of arrests. Protesters denounced Shafik for calling police onto campus to stop the demonstrations, while pro-Israel advocates criticized her for failing to do enough to quell the protests.

Katrina Armstrong, executive vice president for health and biomedical services, will serve as interim president, the university's website reported.

Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, who has criticized Shafik and other university leaders in congressional hearings over Gaza-related protests across the country, welcomed her resignation in a post on Twitter, saying it was "overdue" because of her failure to protect Jewish students.

Shafik, an Egyptian-born economist with dual British-American citizenship, was a former deputy governor of the Bank of England, president of the London School of Economics and deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

In July 2023, she became the 20th president of Columbia University.

After protesters set up dozens of tents and demanded that the university sell its Israeli assets, university officials tried to negotiate an agreement with the protesters to dismantle the camps.

With the talks failing, Shafik on April 18 took the unusual step of asking the NYPD to enter the campus, angering many human rights groups, students and faculty.

More than 100 people were arrested and tents were removed from the main lawn, but within days the camp was set up again in the same spot. The university called the police again on April 30, who arrested 300 people at Columbia University and City College of New York.

Shafiq then asked the police to stay until at least May 17, two days after this year's graduation, "to maintain order and ensure that camps are not set up again."

Reuters