Rutgers University president set to resign after contending with pandemic, anti-Israel protests

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Jewish graduate calls out Rutgers’ handling of antisemitism on campus: ‘Oblivious’

Rutgers graduate Ezra Pfeffer discusses antisemitism on college campuses as the House conducts a hearing about the ongoing issue.

Rutgers University’s president will step down at the end of the academic year after leading the top New Jersey university during a brief tenure plagued by the pandemic and pro-Palestinian protests and encampments on campus.

Jonathan Holloway, 57, who became the first Black president of Rutgers when he took office in the summer of 2020, said he will leave office when the current academic year ends. He said he plans to take a yearlong sabbatical before returning to the university as a full-time professor.

“This decision is my own and reflects my own rumination about how best to be of service,” Holloway wrote in a statement posted on the university’s website.

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Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway makes a speech during a House of Representatives committee session on May 23 in Washington, D.C., following student protests in support of Gaza that took place on university campuses across the country last spring. (Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Holloway’s tenure as the university’s president was plagued with conflict — with the president contending with the COVID-19 pandemic and, more recently, the Israel-Hamas war and anti-Israel protests on campus.

Arriving in July 2020, Holloway laid the groundwork for the university to move fully remotely and subsequently brought students back on campus with the roll-out of mandatory vaccination requirements.

Rutgers University students set up a Gaza solidarity encampment on campus in Newark, N.J. (Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Rutgers’ top leaders have faced backlash for their lack of action during the pro-Palestinian campus protests, with Jewish students saying Holloway and administrators “ran away” from blatant antisemitic campus behavior.

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One student previously shared with Fox News Digital that campus leadership left “behind the Jewish/pro-Israel students to deal with an unruly and obviously antisemitic crowd, whose attention turned to the Jews after the administration left.”

They said that police were forced to step in and shield Jewish students from the protesters.

A pro-Palestinian encampment at Rutgers University in Newark, N.J., May 21. (Getty Images)

Following Holloway’s announcement Tuesday, Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., of the congressional Education and Workforce Committee, said that the president’s legacy would be one of “empowering antisemites and terrorist sympathizers.”

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“If he resigned today, President Holloway’s legacy would be one of empowering antisemites and terrorist sympathizers,” Foxx wrote in a statement. “He must use his final year at Rutgers doing everything in his power to change that, starting by closing the antisemitic, pro-terror Center for Security, Race, and Rights; enforcing the rules; and enacting policies to protect Jewish students and faculty.”

The university has not announced who will take the helm of Rutgers following Holloway’s departure.

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“I remain steadfast in my belief that Rutgers is on the rise and is earning the respect it has long deserved,” he said. “I look forward to seeing it flourish in the years ahead.”

Fox News Digital has reached out to Rutgers for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Brie Stimson contributed to this report.

Sarah Rumpf-Whitten is a breaking news writer for Fox News Digital and Fox Business. 

Story tips and ideas can be sent to sarah.rumpf@fox.com and on X: @s_rumpfwhitten.