Columbia’s President May Face a Censure Resolution

In February, Nemat Shafik, the president of Columbia University, told the school’s senate that she sensed a “low level of trust” in the administration.

There was a feeling, Dr. Shafik said, that “the administration is the enemy,” according to the minutes of her meeting with the senate.

If the campus distrusted Dr. Shafik two months ago, the relationship is now approaching estrangement.

The university senate is expected to vote, possibly as early as Wednesday, on a resolution censuring Dr. Shafik, a reaction to her testimony before Congress and the arrests of more than 100 student protesters.

A draft of the resolution, circulated Monday, accused Dr. Shafik of violating “the fundamental requirements of academic freedom,” ignoring faculty governance and staging an “unprecedented assault on student rights.”

The resolution is expected to be introduced by two members of the 111-seat senate. It specifically states that the resolution is not a call for Dr. Shafik’s resignation, but the resolution also calls for the censure of other university officials, including Claire Shipman and David Greenwald, the chairs of Columbia’s board of trustees.