Rutgers faculty defend the university in advance of Thursday's GOP-led congressional hearing on antisemitism on campus

With their president next up to be grilled by a GOP-led congressional committee probing antisemitism on campus, some Rutgers University faculty, including leaders of its union and a group of Jewish professors, are speaking up in defense of the school’s decision to negotiate an agreement with pro-Palestinian encampment protesters.

Jonathan Holloway, Rutgers’ president, will testify Thursday morning before the Committee on Education and the Workforce, along with Michael Schill, president of Northwestern University, and Gene Block, chancellor of the University of California, Los Angeles.

Following the last committee hearing on the subject in December, two of the three college presidents who testified — University of Pennsylvania’s Liz Magill and Harvard University’s Claudine Gay — ultimately resigned following a backlash against their testimony.

The stakes are high.

“We think that the education workforce committee is led by people who would like to bring down higher education and they are using accusations of antisemitism to try to push forward an anti-education agenda that they have been pushing for a long time,” said Rebecca Givan, vice president of Rutgers AAUP-AFT. “We appreciate the approach that President Holloway has taken and we hope that he will stand strong.”

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, spoke out against the committee and its approach at a news conference Wednesday, along with union leaders from Rutgers and Northwestern Universities.

Why is the teachers union speaking out against the congressional committee?

The union support for Holloway’s decision to broker an agreement with the pro-Palestinian protesters comes after years of conflict with the university president.

Rutgers faculty union has long been at odds with Holloway over his leadership of the 67,672-student flagship university, especially during a strike last spring when Holloway had threatened to seek an injunction to make faculty return to class. And in September, the faculty senate voted no confidence in him, following several controversial decisions, including the ouster of the Newark campus chancellor and the planned merger of the university’s two medical schools.

Holloway, formerly the provost of Northwestern University who became Rutgers’ first Black president in 2020, has continued to be staunchly supported by the board of governors.

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