Armstrong is moving to a new role amid a congressional probe into the university’s compliance with Trump deal
Former Columbia University president Katrina Armstrong, who resigned after telling the federal government she couldn’t recall specifics of any antisemitic incident on campus, is stepping down as CEO of the Ivy League institution’s medical center and dean of the medical school, Columbia acting president Claire Shipman announced Monday.
Armstrong will leave those roles to launch the Vagelos Institute for Basic Biomedical Research, which will be housed in the medical school and will center on areas such as cell engineering and gene therapies. It stems from a $400 million donation from former Merck chair and CEO Roy Vagelos and his wife Diana. Together, the couple has dumped $900 million into Columbia—and hundreds of thousands into Democratic candidates’ campaigns, including nearly $30,000 to President Joe Biden’s campaign and more than $13,000 to Kamala Harris’s campaign.
Armstrong’s transition comes as a congressional committee investigates whether Columbia is complying with the terms of its $221 million settlement with the Trump administration. She featured prominently in a House Energy and Commerce Committee letter announcing the probe, with committee chair Brett Guthrie (R., Ky.) questioning whether she had “become a better leader capable of helping oversee the implementation of the agreement.”
A Columbia spokesman pointed the Washington Free Beacon to the university’s announcement.
Armstrong stepped in to head Columbia after her predecessor, Minouche Shafik, resigned in August 2024 amid scandals surrounding anti-Israel and frequently antisemitic protests that gripped the campus, but her own tenure proved no less controversial. Unrest continued during Armstrong’s leadership, yet she told the federal government in an April 2025 deposition that she had “no specific memory” of anti-Israel activists calling for the destruction of Israel or other high-profile incidents detailed by Columbia’s antisemitism task force, such as allegations that students spat on their Jewish counterparts.
“I’m just trying to understand,” then-acting Department of Health and Human Services general counsel Sean Keveney asked, “how you have such a terrible memory of specific incidents of antisemitism when you’re clearly an intelligent doctor?” He continued, “Can you explain that to me; how do you not remember all these horrible specific things that happened on campus?”
Armstrong said she did not “have specific recollections sitting here of what is in this report or what I recall from this report.”
Armstrong also sent a memo to the Trump administration in March 2025 as part of an effort to restore more than $400 million in federal funding to the university. She promised to implement reforms aimed at addressing the campus disruptions, including restrictions on face masks, improvements to the disciplinary office, and moving the University Judicial Board into her purview.
But immediately thereafter, she told some 75 faculty members at a Zoom meeting that there would be “no change to masking” and that the university’s disciplinary process “remains independent” and “has not been moved to my office,” the Free Beacon reported.
Armstrong resigned as interim president days later and returned to head Columbia’s Irvine Medical School, the job she held before moving to replace Shafik. Her return was delayed by a month when she announced that she would go on sabbatical the same day the Free Beacon published the transcript of her April 2025 deposition.
Shipman, in her Monday announcement, praised Armstrong’s tenure as president, saying it reflected “her deep sense of responsibility to Columbia’s mission.”
“As interim president, she prioritized community engagement, student well-being, and academic excellence through collaboration across campuses and disciplines, and I am particularly grateful for her contributions in these areas,” Shipman said.
Armstrong, however, has continued to face scrutiny. The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s letter announcing its investigation into Columbia’s compliance with the Trump deal included numerous references to Armstrong.
“That sabbatical could have been an opportunity for … Dr. Armstrong to reflect on the way Columbia has addressed antisemitism on campus and ways to reform and improve Columbia’s record of compliance with federal civil rights laws,” the letter reads. “Questions remain as to whether Dr. Armstrong has become a better leader capable of helping oversee the implementation of the agreement.”
The letter also notes that Columbia had “repeatedly failed to provide” its federal monitor with policies relating to antisemitism and DEI for the vast majority of its schools—a potential violation of the agreement’s requirement that the monitor have access to all relevant documents.
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