Reps. Gottheimer, Norcross lead letter calling on Rutgers to urgently address Jewish faculty, student antisemitism and safety concerns
Requests answers from Rutgers by May 16
NEW JERSEY – U.S. Representatives Josh Gottheimer (NJ-05) and Donald Norcross (NJ-01) Wednesday night sent a letter to Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway calling on the university to urgently address the antisemitism and safety concerns raised by Jewish students for months.
Rutgers has a responsibility to ensure the safety and inclusion of all faculty and students on campus after the administration appeased the demands of violent and hateful agitators.
In the letter to President Holloway, the lawmakers also demanded answers about whether the administration consulted with Jewish students about the negotiations with protestors and what steps the university is taking to include the Jewish community in decisions on campus. The members requested answers by Thursday, May 16.
“Members of Rutgers’ Jewish community have made urgent requests of the administration, as far back as December, pleading with them to take several reasonable steps that would ensure their safety and welcomeness on campus. As far as we can tell, these requests have been largely ignored. As a Jewish faculty member said, ‘We played nice and got little; SJP [Students for Justice in Palestine] broke every rule in the book and got rewarded with amnesty,'” wrote the members.
Since the October 7 attack by Hamas, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) recorded a 388% increase in incidents of antisemitic harassment, vandalism, and assault over the same period last year.
In 2023, ADL recorded 8,873 antisemitic incidents across the United States, a 140% increase from the 3,698 incidents recorded in 2022 and is the highest number on record since ADL began tracking antisemitic incidents in 1979.
