Mounting calls for Columbia President Minouche Shafik to go because she has 'surrendered control to the anti-Semitic fringe' and allowed 'anarchy' after she canceled all in-person classes until the end of the semester

Columbia University President Minouche Shafik said in a message to the school community Monday that she was 'deeply saddened' by what was happening on campus as hoards of students staged anti-Israel protests. 

'To deescalate the rancor and give us all a chance to consider next steps, I am announcing that all classes will be held virtually on Monday,' Shafik wrote, noting that students who don't live on campus should stay away. 

In the wake of that decision, Rep. Ritchie Torres, a Democrat, tweeted that the president, who has only been in the role since the summer of 2023, had 'surrendered control of Columbia to an antisemitic fringe.'

'If you cannot ensure the safety of your students, then you have no business serving as President of any university... What Columbia University needs is not an appeaser of antisemitism but a leader who will fight with moral clarity against it,' Torres added.

In addition to Torres, New York's Republican representatives in congress have called for Shafik to resign.  In a letter, the GOP lawmakers said that Shafik had allowed 'anarchy to engulf' the Manhattan university. 

'The situation unfolding on campus right now is a direct product of your policies and misguided decisions. Based on these recent events and your testimony in front of Congress, we have no confidence in your leadership of this once esteemed institution,' the letter continues. 

Columbia President Minouche Shafik answers questions in front of congress this week, the same day that new protests sprang up on the Manhattan campus 

Pro-Palestinian supporters set up a protest encampment on the campus eventually causing all classes to be held remotely 

In a statement Monday, Shafik said the Middle East conflict is terrible and that she understands that many are experiencing deep moral distress

The protest encampment sprung up at Columbia on Wednesday, the same day that Shafik faced bruising criticism at a congressional hearing from Republicans who said she hadn't done enough to fight antisemitism. 

As a result of the growing protests, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft announced his intention to pull his funding for the school.  

Two other Ivy League presidents resigned months ago following widely criticized testimony they gave to the same committee.

In a statement Monday, Shafik said the Middle East conflict is terrible and that she understands that many are experiencing deep moral distress. 

'But we cannot have one group dictate terms and attempt to disrupt important milestones like graduation to advance their point of view,' Shafik wrote.

Over the coming days, a working group of deans, school administrators and faculty will try to find a resolution to the university crisis, noted Shafik, who didn't say when in-person classes would resume.

U.S. House Republicans from New York urged Shafik to resign, saying in a letter Monday that she had failed to provide a safe learning environment in recent days as 'anarchy has engulfed the campus.'

In her book, What We Owe Each Other, Shafik wrote about her view of what a healthy university campus looks like. 

'The point of university is to be intellectually challenged and confronted with difference,' she wrote according to an excerpt that was published on the International Monetary Fund's website. 

In the article, it says that Shafik advocates for free speech adding that during her time as the director of the London School of Economics, nobody was 'barred from speaking because of views that some might consider offensive.'

Shafik has received criticism from Democratic Congressman Ritchie Torres this week 

That article sheds light on Shafik's background. Born in Egypt, her family fled the regime of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, first settling in Savannah, Georgia. The family moved around throughout the 1960 and 1970s. 

In third level education, Shafik attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the London School of Economics and Oxford. 

At 36, she became the youngest ever vice president of the World Bank. During her work there, she met her first husband, fellow Egyptian Mohamed El-Erian. 

In 2002, Shafik married her second husband, scientist Raffael Jovine. The couple shares two children and three step children. 

Their daughter, Olivia, is a 2015 graduate of Columbia's urban planning school. 

Between 2017 and 2023, Shafik served as vice chancellor and director of the London School of Economics in addition to being the deputy governor of the Bank of England and sitting on the board of directors of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. 

Tensions remained high Monday at Columbia, where the campus gates were locked to anyone without a school ID and where protests broke out both on campus and outside.

U.S. Rep. Kathy Manning, a Democrat from North Carolina who was visiting Columbia with three other Jewish members of Congress, told reporters after meeting with students from the Jewish Law Students Association that there was 'an enormous encampment of people' who had taken up about a third of the green.

'We saw signs indicating that Israel should be destroyed,' she said after leaving the Morningside Heights campus. 

Columbia announced Monday that courses at the Morningside campus will offer virtual options for students when possible, citing safety as their top priority.

A woman inside the campus gates led about two dozen protesters on the street outside in a chant of, 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!' — a charged phrase that can mean vastly different things to different groups. 

A small group of pro-Israel counter demonstrators protested nearby. 

Protests have roiled many college campuses since Hamas’ deadly attack on southern Israel, when militants killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took roughly 250 hostages. 

During the ensuing war, Israel has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to the local health ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and non-combatants but says at least two-thirds of the dead are children and women

.