Columbia University's President Nemat Minouche Shafik(Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images via AFP)
BEIRUT – 216 staff members at the American University of Beirut signed a petition on Sunday stating that they revoke their support for the honorary doctorate granted to Columbia University's current president, Nemat Minouche Shafik in 2018, from AUB who has "demonstrated egregious dereliction of her duties as a scholar and a university servant."
We faculty at @AUB_Lebanon demand that President of Columbia University, Nemat Minouche Shafik, be stripped of her AUB honorary doctorate (2018). https://t.co/CJAnN3XtC4#columbiauniversityprotest #ColumbiaUniversity @AUBFUn
— Rima Rantisi (@cerevolutions) May 11, 2024
Shafik has garnered controversy when among many students, faculty and outside observers for summoning New York police to dismantle a tent encampment set up on campus by students protesting against Israel’s war on Gaza at the end of April.
More than 100 people were arrested. That followed her testimony before a congressional committee the day before, where some House members grilled her on the university's response to antisemitism, while others questioned her commitment to protecting pro-Palestinian speech.
The Israeli war on Gaza has resulted in 35,173 so far.
On social media, on trucks driving around the New York City campus, and at a virtual press conference hosted by Columbia professors and anti-war activists at the end of April, many have called for her resignation.
"Shafik took the unilateral decision to violate the academic freedom of students, staff and faculty by declaring their peaceful protests against Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza a 'clear and present danger' and calling in the New York police to violently suppress their protests," the petition said.
"By taking such brutal, cowardly actions against university faculty, staff and students who are risking their future to denounce the genocidal war in Gaza, President Shafik has displayed craven absence of moral integrity and blatantly contradicted AUB’s mission, values, and ideals that are the basis for granting an honorary doctorate. We find it imperative that the AUB leadership take action promptly to rescind Shafik’s AUB honorary doctorate," the petition concluded.
AUB was not available to comment on the matter at the time of publication of this article.
Shafik, 61, is both the first woman and the first person of Middle Eastern origin to head Columbia University.
Shafik was born in Alexandria, Egypt, she and her family fled political unrest in the mid-1960s when she was only four. She grew up during the end of the Civil Rights Movement in Georgia, North Carolina and Florida.
Pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses ignited in the United States on April 17, 2024, before spreading to other countries. They began after there were mass arrests at Columbia University after protesters demanded the university's disinvestment from Israel over what they are calling a genocide against Palestinians.