Brandeis University President Ronald D. Liebowitz will resign, effective Nov. 1, following a $2 million budget deficit revealed over the summer and a narrow no-confidence vote by the university's faculty this week.

The motion passed with 159 votes in favor, 149 against and 26 abstentions, with over 75% of eligible voters casting ballots, according to Boston.com.

"This reveals what our multiple faculty conversations and debates on it made clear: while faculty are united in their care for Brandeis and their great desire for it to flourish, they are divided on this motion," professor and Faculty Senate Chair Jeffrey Lenowitz told the outlet.

According to the Justice, the Brandeis student newspaper, faculty have been in talks about a no-confidence vote since May, and criticized Liebowitz for "badly handled budget shortfalls, failures of fundraising, excessive responses to student protests, indifference to faculty motions, and the recent damaging staff layoffs."

The budget shortfall led to plans to eliminate 60 positions at the institution, and over the past five years, Brandeis has seen a roughly 9% drop in overall enrollment.

A pro-Palestinian protest last fall, which led to the arrest of seven individuals, and the banning of Students for Justice in Palestine at Brandeis after it reportedly expressed open support for Hamas, also drew criticism.

Leibowtiz's resignation makes him the latest major university president to resign following controversial responses to campus protests over the Israel-Gaza war.

In a Wednesday announcement to the school community, the Board of Trustees expressed gratitude toward Liebowitz for the role he played last year in speaking against antisemitism on college campuses. Approximately one-third of Brandeis' student population is Jewish.

"He has continually reminded us that we are animated by Jewish values and identity, including a reverence for knowledge, a commitment to repairing the world, and openness to all," board Chair Lisa R. Kranc said.

Arthur Levine, a Brandeis graduate and former president of Teachers College at Columbia University, will take on the role of interim president.

In his letter to the Brandeis community, Leibowtiz said leaving the university would provide him a "valuable moment" to create new pathways for innovation and reform in higher education.

"It has been gratifying to advance the university's unusual mission of providing an undergraduate liberal arts education of excellence along with first-rate doctoral programs and world class scientific research," he said.

Tags Budget, Protests