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‘Disgrace’: Rutgers University President to Leave Office After Spring Term Amid Campus Antisemitism Complaints
Rutgers University president Jonathan Holloway attends a House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing on pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses, on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, May 23, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades
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 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.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post ‘Disgrace’: Rutgers University President to Leave Office After Spring Term Amid Campus Antisemitism Complaints first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The Trump administration has imposed sweeping sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, citing the UN official’s lengthy record of singling out Israel for condemnation.
In a post on X, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions under a February executive order targeting those who “prompt International Criminal Court (ICC) action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.” He accused Albanese of waging “political and economic warfare” against both nations and asserted that “such efforts will no longer be tolerated.”
“Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt [International Criminal Court] action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives,” Rubio announced on X/Twitter.
“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” declared the Trump administration’s top foreign affairs official. “We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.”
Rubio concluded: “The United States will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to lawfare and protect our sovereignty and that of our allies.”
The decision to impose sanctions on Albanese marks an escalation in the ongoing feud between the White House and the United Nations over Israel. The Trump administration has repeatedly accused the UN and Albanese of unfairly targeting Israel and mischaracterizing the Jewish state’s conduct in Gaza.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has held the position of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories since 2022. The position authorizes her to monitor and report on alleged “human rights violations” by Israel against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Last week, Albanese issued a scathing report accusing companies of helping Israel maintain a so-called “genocide economy.” She called on the companies to cut off economic ties with Israel and warned that they might be guilty of “complicity” in the so-called “genocide” in Gaza.
Critics of Albanese have long accused her of exhibiting an excessive anti-Israel bias, calling into question her fairness and neutrality.
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.
In the months following the Palestinian terrorist group’s atrocities across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Albanese accused the Jewish state of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people had been killed in the Gaza war as a result of Israeli actions.
The action comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington, where he has received a warm reception from the Trump administration. Netanyahu has been meeting with US officials to discuss next steps in the ongoing Gaza military operation.
Gideon Sa’ar, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Israel, commended the Rubio announcement with his own post on X/Twitter, exclaiming: “A clear message. Time for the UN to pay attention!”
The post US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations
US President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
The Trump administration escalated its showdown against Harvard University on Wednesday, reporting the institution to its accreditor for alleged civil rights violations resulting from its weak response to reports of antisemitic bullying, discrimination, and harassment following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 massacre across southern Israel.
The US Department of Education (DOE) announced the action on Wednesday. Citing Harvard’s admitted failure to treat antisemitism as seriously as it treated others forms of hatred in the past, the DOE called on the New England Commission of Higher Education to review and, potentially, revoke its accreditation — a designation which qualifies Harvard for federal funding and attests to the quality of the educational services its provides.
“Accrediting bodies play a significant role in preserving academic integrity and a campus culture conducive to truth seeking and learning,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Part of that is ensuring students are safe on campus and abiding by federal laws that guarantee educational opportunities to all students. By allowing anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination to persist unchecked on its campus, Harvard University has failed in its obligation to students, educators, and American taxpayers.”
The DOE, McMahon added, “expects the New England Commission of Higher Education to enforce its policies and practices, and to keep the Department fully informed of its efforts to ensure that Harvard is in compliance with federal law and accreditor standards.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism has acknowledged that the university administration’s handling of campus antisemitism fell well below its obligations under both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its own nondiscrimination policies.
In a 300-plus-page report, the task force compiled a comprehensive record of antisemitic incidents on Harvard’s campus in recent years — from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s endorsement of the Oct. 7 terrorist atrocities to an anti-Zionist faculty group’s sharing an antisemitic cartoon depicting Jews as murderers of people of color. The report identified Harvard’s past refusal to afford Jews the same protections against discrimination enjoyed by other minority groups as a key source of its problem.
Coming several weeks after President Donald Trump ordered the freeze of $2.26 billion in federal research grants and contracts for Harvard, the task force report found it was “clear” that antisemitism and anti-Israel bias have been fomented, practiced, and tolerated not only at Harvard but also within academia more widely.”
The university is now suing the federal government over the funding halt.
President Trump has spoken scathingly of Harvard, calling it, for example, an “Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institute … with students being accepted from all over the world that want to rip our Country apart” in an April post to his Truth Social platform.
In recent weeks, however, both Trump and McMahon had commended Harvard’s constructive response in negotiations over reforms the administration has asked it to implement as a precondition for restoring federal funds. The requested reforms include hiring more conservative faculty, shuttering diversity, equity, and inclusion [DEI] programs, and slashing the size of administrative offices tangential to the university’s central educational mission.
The administration has since changed its tone in the wake of a report by The Harvard Crimson that interim Harvard President Alan Garber has said “behind closed doors” that he has no intention of doing anything that would make Harvard more palatable to conservatives.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism issued Harvard a formal “notice of violation” of civil rights law. Charging that Harvard willfully exposed Jewish students to a flood of racist and antisemitic abuse both in and outside of the classroom, it threatened to strip whatever remains of Harvard’s federal funding.
“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” wrote the federal officials comprising the multiagency Task Force. “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”
In Wednesday’s announcement, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Harvard’s conduct “forfeits the legitimacy that accreditation is designed to uphold.”
“HHS and Department of Education will actively hold Harvard accountable through sustained oversight until it restores public trust and ensures a campus free of discrimination,” he said.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks
IDF operating in southern Lebanon. Photo: IDF Spokesperson
Israeli forces uncovered and destroyed Hezbollah weapons caches in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, as a new report indicated that despite ongoing U.S.-led efforts to secure a disarmament deal, the Iran-backed group is making repeated, largely concealed attempts to rebuild its military presence in the area.
Troops carried out several operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon on Wednesday morning, destroying weapons depots, explosives and multibarrel launchers concealed in forested terrain, the IDF said, in violation of the November ceasefire, which requires Hezbollah to withdraw its forces 20 miles from the Israeli border.
A new report released this week by the Alma Research and Education Center found that Hezbollah is focused on rebuilding in three areas: operational deployment, weapons acquisition, and financial recovery.
“Hezbollah didn’t give up its resistance narrative and motivation,” Alma’s director, Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, told The Algemeiner.
“It wants to rebuild its capabilities and infrastructures, whether it’s the villages that will be used as human shields or the military infrastructure in South Lebanon and in Lebanon in general.”
According to Zehavi, Hezbollah is attempting to return Radwan fighters to positions south of the Litani River as part of a wider plan to restore its elite forces to operational readiness. The IDF on Monday killed Radwan commander Ali Abd al-Hassan Haidar in a targeted strike. The action came hours after US Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut to discuss a long-term deal that would include an Israeli withdrawal and complete disarmament of Hezbollah.
Barrack described the Lebanese response to the proposal as positive. Later, he issued a blunt warning to Hezbollah in response to a vow by the terror group’s leader, Naim Qassem, not to lay down its arms. “If they mess with us anywhere in the world, they will have a serious problem with us,” Barrack said in an interview with Lebanese news network LBCI. “They don’t want that.”
Zehavi said it was premature to predict the outcome of the diplomatic efforts. She warned that the challenge of disarming Hezbollah remains enormous and emphasized that the Lebanese Armed Forces have not demonstrated the capability or willingness to confront the group.
“It’s too soon to be optimistic or pessimistic,” she said, noting that no firm commitments have emerged from the Beirut talks.
Hezbollah’s efforts to smuggle and manufacture weapons have been complicated by both Israeli strikes and the regional realignment over recent months. While Israeli strikes have disrupted many supply routes, according to Zehavi, Syrian authorities have intercepted far more Hezbollah-bound weapons than the Lebanese Army, which claims to have uncovered 500 arms caches but has provided no evidence.
The financial front marks the third aspect of Hezbollah’s rebuilding effort. Last week, the group halted cash payments to Shiite civilians whose homes were damaged in the war, citing liquidity problems. Zehavi attributed the shortfall to disruptions in Iran’s funding networks — an outcome of the 12-day war against the regime in Tehran — and said the constraints would likely hamper Hezbollah’s ability to compensate its base and sustain operations.
“I hope they will continue to have problems with the cash flow, that way it will be very difficult for them to recover,” she said.
The post IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.