Updated on Aug. 15 at 9:50 p.m.
Minouche Shafik, who resigned as University president on Wednesday, will move on to join the U.K. government—which has grown increasingly critical of Israel’s war in Gaza since the Labour Party took power in July.
In an email to the University community announcing her resignation, Shafik wrote that Foreign Secretary David Lammy had asked her to “chair a review of the government’s approach to international development and how to improve capability.” She wrote that she was “pleased” and “appreciative” that the offer would allow her “to return to work on fighting global poverty and promoting sustainable development.”
While in her new role, Shafik will continue to serve as a baroness in the House of Lords, in which she has been a voting member since 2020.
Shafik’s move marks a return to familiar territory for the development economist. From 2008 to 2011, she served as permanent secretary to the U.K.’s Department for International Development, a ministerial department that was merged with the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in 2020 to create the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
Her transition to the public sector also means that she will join a British government in the midst of reassessing its policy toward Israel, which has entered the 11th month of a war in Gaza that has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities.
Since the Labour Party won a sweeping parliamentary majority in July, the U.K. government has increased its pressure on Israel, deviating from Conservative policies that saw the country frequently move in lockstep with the United States.
In July, Britain dropped its challenge to the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and restored funding to a U.N. Palestinian aid agency. Currently, the government is considering a partial ban on weapons sales to Israel, but its decision has been delayed since Israel’s July 27 attack in Lebanon.
Shafik’s arrival comes at a time when the Labour government is seeking to reinvest in international development, following a series of belt-tightening reforms implemented under former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. While crises related to immigration, climate change, and conflict in the Middle East and Ukraine stress development spending, Labour has pledged to return investment on development to billions of pounds per year once Britain’s economy improves.
In the face of these challenges, Shafik will bring her past experience serving as vice president of the World Bank, running the International Monetary Fund’s programs in the Middle East during the Arab Spring, and overseeing the Bank of England as a deputy governor during the Brexit vote.
Shafik’s departure from Columbia follows months of criticism for her handling of pro-Palestinian protests on campus. In April, she authorized police to enter campus twice—clearing the first “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” and occupied Hamilton Hall—arresting over 200 protesters across both sweeps.
The day before the occupation of Hamliton, Shafik had announced the University would not divest from Israel but said the University offered to make investments in health and education in Gaza and develop an “expedited timeline” to review divestment proposals submitted to the Advisory Committee for Socially Responsible Investments, which oversees divestment decisions.
Her leadership at Columbia dismayed many students and professors at Columbia and has caused multiple academics in the United Kingdom to question whether she is capable of effectively serving in the British government.
Dr. Priyamvada Gopal, professor of postcolonial studies at Cambridge University, posted on X, “the fact that Columbia University’s President who has had to resign in disgrace is immediately embraced and rehabilitated by Starmerite Labour tells you a lot,” referring to Prime Minister Keir Stamer.
Historian Nicholas Guyatt, also of Cambridge, wrote that “Shafik’s resignation is long overdue but it is astonishing that the UK’s new Labour government has instantly offered her a job.”
Zarah Sultana, a Labour member of Parliament from Coventry South currently on suspension, criticized Shafik in a post on X for cracking down on student protesters, writing that she “should play absolutely no role in government.”
Video Editor Wyatt King can be contacted at wyatt.king@columbiaspectator.com. Follow him on X @wyatt_m_king.
Want to keep up with breaking news? Subscribe to our email newsletter and like Spectator on Facebook.