Ex-university president at center of anti-Israel firestorm lands top UK job

Controversial former Columbia University President Minouche Shafik has been tapped by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to serve as his chief economic adviser.

Shafik infamously resigned from her role as Columbia’s president in 2024 after her testimony in front of Congress sparked intense backlash. The university became a hotspot for anti-Israel protests on American college campuses following the start of the Israel-Hamas War on Oct. 7, 2023, and Shafik was questioned for allowing several antisemitic incidents to continue.

“Baroness (Minouche) Shafik is a world leading economist, whose career has straddled public policy and academia,” Starmer’s press release announcing the decision reads. “This role and the additional expertise will support the Government to go further and faster in driving economic growth and raising living standards for all.”

Protesters at Columbia held weeks-long encampments and even took over a campus building, during which a university employee was allegedly held hostage. The Ivy League school failed to discipline more than 100 protesters involved in the events until more than a year later, and despite New York police making dozens of arrests, many of the charges were eventually dropped. The intensity of the demonstrations even forced the university to shift instruction online in order to “de-escalate” the situation.

Administrators at Columbia were even caught championing the pro-Palestinian protesters efforts in private messages, admitting they hoped to strike an “amazing” deal for them.

Shafik previously served in several financial roles, including under the United Kingdom government as the Permanent Secretary of the Department for International Development. She also served as the Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund and Deputy Governor of the Bank of England.

In its coverage of the Prime Minister’s appointment, The Associated Press failed to mention the controversy surrounding Shafik’s exit from Columbia, stating only that the former president “left her job … following scrutiny of her handling of protests and campus divisions over the Israel-Hamas war.” The outlet boiled down the multi-month stranglehold protesters had on the university to simply an issue of Shafik facing criticism from students for “her decision to invite police in to arrest protesters” and from “Republicans in Congress and others [who] called on her to do more to call out antisemitism.”

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