House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) called on Wednesday for Columbia University’s president to step down before his visit to the school.
“President Shafik has demonstrated to be a very weak, incapable leader. They can't even ensure the safety of Jewish students? They're supposed to flee and skip classes? It's frustrating,” Johnson stated in a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt from Fox News.
Several lawmakers have visited Columbia since pro-Palestine protesters established a camp a week ago and have refused to depart until the school agrees to disinvest from Israel or companies associated with its war efforts.
Johnson will tour the school and have lunch with Jewish students, who have expressed feeling fearful on their campus in recent months.
Columbia disclosed this week that classes would be held in a hybrid format for the rest of the semester due to the unrest and safety worries.
“The behavior on college campuses across the country is repulsive and unacceptable, and every leader in this country, every political official, every person of good conscience must denounce and declare that, ‘This is not who we are in America,'” Johnson remarked. He added that there must be “accountability, and that is what my colleagues and I will be working on.”
All 10 Republican lawmakers from New York, along with Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), have demanded that Columbia University President Minouche Shafik step down.
If she resigns, Shafik would be the third major university president to fall due to antisemitism on campus.
“President Shafik is focused on deescalating the tensions on Columbia’s campus. She is collaborating with members of the faculty, administration, and Board of Trustees, as well as state, city and community leaders, and values their support,” a university spokesperson mentioned when questioned about the resignation calls for Shafik.
