On Thursday, Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway will travel to Washington to face an inquisition in Congress led by a fire-breathing Republican who has already decided that he’s a monster.
Holloway, says Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, “made shocking concessions to the unlawful antisemitic encampments.” She says that Rutgers “stands out for the intensity and pervasiveness of antisemitism on its campuses.”
And she blames Holloway and his team, not outside agitators, for nurturing this ancient hatred. “Rutgerssenior administrators, faculty, staff, academic departments and centers, and student organizations have contributed to the development of a pervasive climate of antisemitism.”
This description is a dark fantasy, dismissed as ridiculous by Jewish protesters who joined the encampment at Rutgers two weeks ago, and by a good portion of the Jewish faculty at Rutgers. No one I’ve talked to at Rutgers disputes that antisemitism is on the march in America, and that college campuses are not immune.
But this rush to weaponize events on college campuses and demonize people like Holloway is all about politics, another reminder of how degraded our national conversation has become -- and how divorced from reality.
“I’m not saying there is no antisemitism at Rutgers, but I’ve personally never seen it,” says David Kurnick, a Jewish professor of English literature who has taught at the New Brunswick campus for 17 years. “I was at the encampment, and I saw many Jews there. I get that it makes some people uncomfortable, but that’s not the same as antisemitism.”
Kurnick is circulating a petition supporting Holloway and his handling of the student protests, gathering more than 500 signatures of Jewish faculty nationwide, including several dozen from Rutgers.
Granted, not everyone agrees. A polar opposite view comes from a Jewish professor of musicology at New Brunswick, Rebecca Cypess, who wrote a letter to Holloway signed by 72 Jewish faculty at Rutgers, so far, claiming that at Rutgers, “All I do is confront antisemitism.” She says Jewish students have told her that some protesters at the encampment yelled at them, “Murderers!” and said, “Hitler would have loved you.” One student was charged with making terroristic threats by Rutgers Police after posting a death threat against an Israeli student in November.
And what exactly qualifies as antisemitic? The Hitler comment is an easy call. But Cypess has a broader definition, one that includes what she considers unfair criticism of Israel’s conduct in Gaza.
“Exaggerating claims of Israel’s wrongdoing, claiming Israel has no right to defend itself or its citizens – these are antisemitic and they are ethically wrong,” she told me. “Israel has expended great effort to minimize civilian casualties.”
By that measure, of course, most protesters against the war in Gaza are antisemitic. Including those who are Jewish.
* * *
Holloway, a scholar of African-American history, is on the short list to serve as the next president of Yale University. These days at Rutgers, the smile is gone from his face. Sitting in the middle of this tempest is a miserable experience for him, he says, and it’s not just the storm awaiting him in Washington this week. It’s the shots he’s taking from the cheap seats here at home as well.
“There’s a lot of confusion,” he said. “And bad news travels further and faster than good things.”
Gov. Phil Murphy has accused him of ignoring the concerns of Jewish students while catering to the protestors. “You owe everybody their seat at the table,” Murphy said. His spokesman declined to elaborate.
Three members of Congress have taken hard shots at Holloway as well -- Reps. Josh Gottheimer, Donald Norcross and Chris Smith. So has Sen. Jon Bramnick, a GOP candidate for governor. And so have some Jewish groups, including the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest, which called his concessions to protesters“shameful.”
Most of them say Holloway gave protesters most of what they wanted, claiming he met eight of the 10 demands. But that’s a distortion. He rejected the big demands -- to divest university funds, to cut ties with Tel Aviv University. And the most inflammatory demand, listed on a poster at the encampment, demanded that Holloway label the Gaza operation as “genocide” and demand a ceasefire, both of which he brushed off.
His concessions were minor, and academic in nature. Rutgers will “study” establishing a Department of Middle East Studies, and examine the “feasibility” of expanding ties with Birzeit University in the West Bank.
What exactly is wrong with any of that? Protests gave rise to Black studies programs at many universities as well. Was that a mistake? Should those universities have taken a harder line and arrested the protesters who demanded it? I’ve been asking Holloway’s critics to site the concession they find so toxic, and got no specific answers.
It bothers most of them that Holloway gave even an inch. They would have preferred that he enlist the police and order arrests, come what may.
Rabbi Mendy Carlebach, who runs the Chabad House on campus, which houses about 100 Jewish students, provides kosher meals, and hosts events. He said he knows of no physical attacks on Jewish students, but says they do feel unsafe, they have been taunted with antisemitic tropes, and one student was spit on. Some are choosing to cover up the Star of David or other markers of Jewish identity.
“President Holloway, we do have good conversations with him,” he said. “But we were taken by surprise” by his decision to negotiate with students.
Let’s do a fact-check here. Because if you ask me, Holloway handled this just right.
Unlike at Columbia University, he disbanded the student encampment as soon as the protestors disrupted campus activity by making so much noise on Thursday morning that the first round of final exams had to be cancelled. He made that decision with the first beat of the protesters’ drums before finals began, waiting only for police to prepare and to coordinate with the Attorney General. The students were gone by that afternoon, allowing finals to resume.
Unlike at UCLA, he managedthe crisis without causing any violence, thanks to the face-saving compromises that allowed protest leaders to claim some small victory as they disbanded under the threat of arrests.
And unlikeat dozens of universities across the country, commencement at Rutgers went off without a hitch. Shouldn’t this count as a win?
* * *
I visited Holloway in his office this week to talk it over, and I was amazed, because this horrid beast who fans antisemitism appeared to be a thoughtful man.
His North Star in this episode was to protect freedom of speech, at the encampment and in the classroom, while drawing a hard line on disruptions of the school’s academic mission or threats to student safety.
“The principle is that if we don’t allow academic freedom, really bad ideas can take root and fester,” he says. “By putting the unpopular ideas and ugly ideas out there, we have the best chance to refute it.”
He’s had to tolerate speakers and teachers that grate on him during his career on college campuses, he says, including speakers who came dangerously close to espousing white supremacy, especially offensive to a Black man like himself. But he wants his students to hear even those viewpoints they hate. Living in a safe bubble carries a cost, he says.
“People can be jerks, and people can be cruel,” he says. “It breaks my heart. But that’s the world. And while I don’t condone it, I want to make sure we’re raising a generation that understands how to navigate that behavior. And I’m worried we’re not doing that well.”
He’s daunted by the flow of disinformation about the encampment, especially the claim that he agreed to 8 of the 10 demands. His chief regret in this episode is that he didn’t get ahead of that false narrative. He wishes, too, that he had the luxury of time to broaden the discussion and include Jewish students, but he said he had to act quickly to get final exams back on track.
As for his trip to Washington, Holloway is plainly dreading it. And he says other college presidents are ready to walk away from all the hostility, including physical threats.
“We’re sort of at our wit’s end,” he says. “We’re all seeing people we looked up to who are saying, ‘I’m out.’ And I think we’re going to see a lot of that. These jobs are difficult in good times but when you’re facing absolutely no-win situations constantly, in this era of hyperbole about failing to do X, Y, and Z…none of us signed up for that. Just like I didn’t sign up to have a police detail with me everywhere I go.”
It’s a sad day when public service becomes this toxic. And while I hate to add to Holloway’s load of stress, I am quietly hoping that he gives them hell next week. Foxx’s cartoonish description of life at Rutgers is as ignorant as it is opportunistic. Holloway doesn’t deserve a scrap of it.
More: Tom Moran columns
Tom Moran may be reached at tmoran@starledger.com or (973) 986-6951. Follow him on Twitter @tomamoran.
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