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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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Syrian Leader al-Sharaa Holds Talks With Erdogan on Surprise Istanbul Visit
Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria’s interim president, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s president, met during al-Sharaa’s first diplomatic trip since the fall of the al-Assad regime. Photo: Screenshot
i24 News – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was holding talks with Syrian counterpart Ahmed al-Sharaa in Istanbul on Saturday, local media reported. No further details were available.
This comes one day after the US administration of President Donald Trump issued orders that it said would effectively lift sanctions on Syria in order to help the country rebuild after a devastating civil war.
The Treasury Department issued a general license that authorizes transactions involving the interim Syrian government led by Al-Sharaa, as well as the central bank and state-owned enterprises.
The general license, known as GL25, “authorizes transactions prohibited by the Syrian Sanctions Regulations, effectively lifting sanctions on Syria,” the Treasury said in a statement.
Syria welcomed the sanctions waiver early on Saturday, which the Foreign Ministry called a “positive step in the right direction to alleviate the country’s humanitarian and economic suffering.”
Syria is keen on cooperating with other countries “on the basis of mutual respect and non-interference in internal affairs. It believes that dialogue and diplomacy are the best path to building balanced relations,” the ministry said in a statement.
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‘It Was Just An Accident’ by Iran’s Jafar Panahi Wins Cannes’ Top Prize
Director Jafar Panahi, Palme d’Or award winner for the film “Un simple accident” (It Was Just an Accident), reacts, during the closing ceremony of the 78th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France, May 24, 2025. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier
Revenge thriller “It Was Just An Accident” by Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who was last at the Cannes Film Festival in person more than 20 years ago, won the Palme d’Or top prize on Saturday.
Panahi, who has been arrested several times for his filmmaking and was under a travel ban until recently, last attended the festival in person in 2003, when “Crimson Gold” was screened in the Un Certain Regard category.
“Art mobilizes the creative energy of the most precious, most alive part of us. A force that transforms darkness into forgiveness, hope and new life,” said jury president Juliette Binoche when announcing the award.
“It Was Just An Accident” follows Vahid, played by Vahid Mobasseri, who kidnaps a man with a false leg who looks just like the one who tortured him in prison and ruined his life.
Vahid sets out to verify with other prison survivors that it is indeed their torturer – and then decide what to do with him.
An emotional Panahi, wearing sunglasses on stage, thanked his cast and film crew during his acceptance speech.
The Grand Prix, the second-highest prize after the Palme d’Or, was awarded to “Sentimental Value” from acclaimed director Joachim Trier.
The jury prize was split between the intergenerational family drama “Sound of Falling” from German director Mascha Schilinski and “Sirat,” about a father and son who head into the Moroccan desert, by French-Spanish director Oliver Laxe.
Brazil’s “The Secret Agent” won two awards, one for best actor for Wagner Moura, as well as best director for Kleber Mendonca Filho.
“I was having Champagne,” said Mendonca Filho after he ran up to the stage to collect his award after celebrating Moura, who previously made a name for himself in hit TV series “Narcos.”
Newcomer Nadia Melliti took home best actress for “The Little Sister,” a queer coming-of-age story centered around the daughter of Algerian immigrants in Paris.
Belgium’s Dardenne brothers, who have the rare honor of already having won two Palme d’Or prizes, took home the award for best screenplay for their film “Young Mothers.”
Twenty-two films in total were competing for the prize at the 78th Cannes Film Festival, with entries from well-known directors Richard Linklater, Wes Anderson and Ari Aster.
Saturday’s closing ceremony officially ends the glamour-filled festival that began on May 13.
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Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump Admin From Revoking Harvard Enrollment of Foreign Students
US President Trump speaks to the media at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, Washington, DC, April 21, 2025. Photo: Andrew Leyden/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
A US judge on Friday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from revoking Harvard University’s ability to enroll foreign students, a policy the Ivy League school called part of President Donald Trump’s broader effort to retaliate against it for refusing to “surrender its academic independence.”
The order provides temporary relief to thousands of international students who were faced with being forced to transfer under a policy that the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based university called a “blatant violation” of the US Constitution and other federal laws, and said would have an “immediate and devastating effect” on the university and more than 7,000 visa holders.
“Without its international students, Harvard is not Harvard,” the 389-year-old school said in its lawsuit filed earlier on Friday in Boston federal court. Harvard enrolled nearly 6,800 international students in its current school year, equal to 27% of total enrollment.
The move was the latest escalation in a broader battle between Harvard and the White House, as Trump seeks to compel universities, law firms, news media, courts and other institutions that value independence from partisan politics to align with his agenda. Trump and fellow Republicans have long accused elite universities of left-wing bias.
Harvard has pushed back hard against Trump, having previously sued to restore nearly $3 billion in federal grants that had been frozen or canceled. In recent weeks, the administration has proposed ending Harvard’s tax-exempt status and hiking taxes on its endowment, and opened an investigation into whether it violated civil rights laws.
Leo Gerden, a Swedish student set to graduate Harvard with an undergraduate degree in economics and government this month, called the judge’s ruling a “great first step” but said international students were bracing for a long legal fight that would keep them in limbo.
“There is no single decision by Trump or by Harvard or by a judge that is going to put an end to this tyranny of what Trump is doing,” Gerden said.
In its complaint, Harvard said the revocation would force it to retract admissions for thousands of people, and has thrown “countless” academic programs, clinics, courses and research laboratories into disarray, just a few days before graduation. It said the revocation was a punishment for Harvard’s “perceived viewpoint,” which it called a violation of the right to free speech as guaranteed by the US Constitution’s First Amendment.
The Trump administration may appeal US District Judge Allison Burroughs’ ruling. In a statement, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said, “unelected judges have no right to stop the Trump Administration from exercising their rightful control over immigration policy and national security policy.”
Since Trump’s inauguration on January 20, his administration has accused several universities of indifference toward the welfare of Jewish students during widespread campus protests against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
Harvard’s court challenges over the administration’s policies stand in contrast to its New York-based peer Columbia University’s concessions to similar pressure. Columbia agreed to reform disciplinary processes and review curricula for courses on the Middle East, after Trump pulled $400 million in funding over allegations the Ivy League school had not done enough to combat antisemitism.
In announcing on Thursday the termination of Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification, effective starting in the 2025-2026 academic year, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, without providing evidence, accused the university of “fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party.”
Harvard says a fifth of its foreign students in 2024 were from China. US lawmakers from both parties have expressed concerns about the influence of the Chinese government on US college campuses, including efforts by Beijing-directed Chinese student associations to monitor political activities and stifle academic speech.
The university says it is committed to combating antisemitism and investigating credible allegations of civil rights violations.
HARVARD DEFENDS ‘REFUSAL TO SURRENDER’
In her brief order blocking the policy for two weeks, Burroughs said Harvard had shown it could be harmed before there was an opportunity to hear the case in full. The judge, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, scheduled hearings for May 27 and May 29 to consider next steps in the case. Burroughs is also overseeing Harvard’s lawsuit over the grant funds.
Harvard University President Alan Garber said the administration was illegally seeking to assert control over the private university’s curriculum, faculty and student body.
“The revocation continues a series of government actions to retaliate against Harvard for our refusal to surrender our academic independence,” Garber wrote in a letter on Friday to the Harvard community.
The revocation could also weigh on Harvard’s finances. At many US universities, international students are more likely to pay full tuition, essentially subsidizing aid for other students.
“It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.
Harvard’s bonds, part of its $8.2 billion debt pile, have been falling since Trump first warned US universities in March of cuts to federal funding.
International students enrolled at Harvard include Cleo Carney, daughter of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, and Princess Elisabeth, first in line to the Belgian throne.
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