‘Disgrace’: Rutgers University president to leave office after spring term amid campus antisemitism complaints

During an antisemitism hearing, Holloway appeared to defend the pro-Hamas organizers of a ‘Gaza Solidarity Encampment,’ comparing them to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

By Dion J. Pierre, The Algemeiner

Rutgers University president Jonathan Holloway, passed over for a more prestigious position at Yale University and beset by the misconduct of pro-Hamas students on which he has struggled to impose his authority, will leave office at the end of this academic year.

“Serving as the university president has been an enormous privilege and responsibility,” Holloway said on Tuesday in a letter to the campus community which touted the accomplishments of his administration.

“Throughout my tenure, I have been appreciative of the former and respectful of the latter. I welcomed the opportunity to join the Rutgers community in July 2020 because I found inspiration in the possibilities that this institution represented.”

Holloway said that he believes Rutgers University today is a stronger and more respected institution than it was before he was appointed president in 2020, citing some $970 million in research grants awarded to the school during his tenure.

However, Holloway’s alleged inattention to the concerns of Jewish students about rising antisemitism on the New Brunswick campus, which The Algemeiner has covered in numerous reports, has been a negative mark on the record of his leadership.

Holloway first waffled on the issue in 2021, when his administration denounced antisemitism and then apologized for doing so three days later in a statement which said its earlier position “failed to communicate support for our Palestinian community members.”

With the Jewish community outraged, Holloway assumed the reins of official communications, and on May 29, 2021, he issued a third statement, signed solely by himself, which said, “We have not, nor would we ever, apologize for standing against antisemitism.”

Over the next several years, Rutgers would see a succession of antisemitic hate crimes on its campus. For three straight years, someone egged the home of Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi), a Jewish fraternity.

Jewish students reported being subject to verbal abuse and property destruction, including several cases of tire slashing.

After Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, the university’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter cheered the deaths of Jews, and one of its sympathizers on campus called for a murder of a Jewish AEPi member, imploring someone to “go kill him.”

In 2022, a caravan of SJP members drove to AEPi’s house, shouting antisemitic slurs and spitting in the direction of fraternity members.

Rutgers Hillel was a sharp critic of the administration’s alleged failures, noting at one point that it could not bring itself to include antisemitism in a symposium on ethnic and racial hatred that was held in 2021.

“Jews don’t count,” Rutgers Hillel said, adding, “This repeated erasure of Jewish concerns and identity is painful and bewildering to every member of the Rutgers Jewish community.”

The non-Jewish community rated Holloway poorly too. In 2023, he lost a no confidence vote, 89-47, following a faculty strike, fraught contract negotiations, and the firing of the chancellor of the university’s Newark campus, according to a 2023 report in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Later, the Yale Daily News reported, Holloway was conspicuously absent at faculty senate meetings and, one professor said, responded to adversity by exuding the condescension of an Ivy League elitist.

“He has consistently shown contempt for and disdain for the people who do the work of the university,” Rutgers English professor Jim Brown told the Yale Daily News. “He has shown little interest in the working or learning conditions of students, staff, and faculty at all Rutgers campuses.”

Some believed Holloway was biding his time, waiting for the moment when Yale University, his alma mater, would anoint him as its first Black president.

Said an anonymous faculty member to the News, “I think he would see Yale as the pinnacle of his personal achievements. So yeah, I don’t think he wants to stick around at this public university any longer than he has to.”

Holloway was reportedly on the short list to replace Peter Salovey as president following Salovey’s retirement in 2024, but Yale chose someone else, Maurie McInnis, a week after Holloway botched an appearance at a US congressional hearing on campus antisemitism which could have raised confidence in his leadership skills and demonstrated his resolve to oppose political extremism and hate.

During the hearing, Holloway appeared to defend the pro-Hamas organizers of a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” comparing them to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who he said was unpopular in his time.

At one point, Holloway refused to answer whether he believes Israel is a “genocidal” country, agreeing only to say that Israel has a right to defend itself. Later, he stated that he does not believe that Israel is genocidal.

Responding to the announcement of his resignation, US Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) said Holloway should not wait until summer to leave office.

“Jonathan Holloway must resign in disgrace immediately for allowing antisemitic mobs to repeatedly target and threaten the safety of Jewish students, surrendering to the pro-Hamas encampment on campus, and continuing to employ antisemitic and terror-supporting faculty and staff,” she said.

Holloway said on Tuesday that he has “plenty to do before I complete my term,” adding, “I remain focused on that work, especially that which is committed to the connections between Rutgers and civic preparedness and civil discourse. But whatever the topic, I remain steadfast in my belief that Rutgers is on the rise and is earning the respect it has long deserved. I look forward to seeing it flourish in the years ahead.”

AntisemitismJonathan HollowayRutgers University