Columbia College’s interim president, Katrina Armstrong, has stepped down from her place simply days after committing to a campus masks ban underneath strain from the Trump administration, whereas privately assuring college she wouldn’t implement it.Armstrong’s resignation, introduced on Friday night time, adopted a heated battle over the Ivy League establishment’s federal funding. Trump administration had threatened to withdraw $400 million until the college complied with a sequence of reforms, together with the ban on masks at campus protests.In a letter to college students and college, Armstrong confirmed she would return to her position as chief govt officer of Columbia’s Irving Medical Heart.“It has been a singular honour to guide Columbia College on this essential and difficult time,” she wrote. “This is without doubt one of the world’s nice universities, in its most important metropolis, and I’m proud to have labored with extraordinary college, college students, and alumni. However my coronary heart is with science, and my ardour is with therapeutic. That’s the place I can finest serve this College and our group transferring ahead.”Columbia’s board of trustees appointed co-chair Claire Shipman as performing president with speedy impact. She’s going to stay within the position till a everlasting successor is chosen, the college confirmed in a press release, quoted by the New York Put up.Armstrong’s resignation got here after the college’s controversial determination to implement the White Home-backed measures final week, regardless of downplaying the coverage internally. The administration’s crackdown, aimed toward curbing anti-semitism on campus, included a requirement for a complete ban on masks at protests. Columbia was given a month to conform or threat dropping federal funding, in the end conceding to the mandate.
