Oral Testimony Before House Committee
Oral Testimony of Jonathan Holloway
President of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce
May 23, 2024
Chairwoman Foxx, Ranking Member Scott, Members of the Committee:
Thank you for this opportunity. My name is Jonathan Holloway, and I am President of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.
To help you understand me better, I offer the following: my maternal great-grandfather, William Johnson Trent, was an early organizer of the Colored YMCA in Atlanta and served as president of Livingstone College in Salisbury, North Carolina. His son, Bill Trent, Jr., my grandfather, was dean of education at Bennett College in Greensboro, North Carolina, before becoming the founding executive director of the United Negro College Fund. My father, a career officer in the Air Force, was the first black person to teach at the Air War College in Montgomery, Alabama.
I share this to make clear that a commitment to education and to providing access is in my DNA. And though I fully recognize the myriad ways in which my experience and that of our Jewish community are different, I know something about the awful impact of discrimination, too. When I served as an intern for the House Ethics Committee, my father brought me to Capitol Hill on my first day. As we approached the committee offices, he said: “When I was your age, the only way someone who looked like us could cross the threshold was if he were pushing a food cart.” This is part of the reason this discussion matters so much to me.
I tell you with pride that Rutgers boasts one of the largest Jewish student populations in America. And I tell you with conviction that we condemn antisemitism in the strongest terms possible. We do so today, we did so long before October 7, and we will always do so.
Rutgers—home to nearly 100,000 students, faculty, and staff—takes pride in being a public university. We conduct life-changing research and clinical care, and we educate tomorrow’s leaders—many of them first-generation college students and many from low-income families.
What’s more, Rutgers is world-renowned for its Jewish scholarly community. We are one of only a few dozen universities in America with a Department of Jewish Studies. Our Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life holds public lectures, trains teachers on Holocaust education, and hosts the Rutgers Jewish Film Festival.
Rutgers is also home to the Miller Center on Policing and Community Resilience, which is dedicated to protecting vulnerable communities that are facing antisemitism or other forms of intolerance.
The Rutgers Hillel and the Chabad Houses—both among the largest in higher education—sit in the heart of our Big Ten campus in New Brunswick.
During my presidency, we have developed a formal partnership with Tel Aviv University focused on faculty collaborations. As part of that relationship, TAU researchers will have a presence in the Health and Life Sciences center being built in New Brunswick.
We find ourselves here today because of the devastation that the Hamas attacks have wrought. It is heartbreaking to think about the senseless and horrific violence of October 7, about the hostages still held captive by Hamas 230 days later, about the thousands of Palestinian children killed in the war, about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza that gets worse every day. At Rutgers, this war has been a tragedy for our Jewish and Palestinian communities. Many in our community, searching for a way to curtail this tragedy, have turned to activism and protest.
During this period of heightened fear, anxiety, and polarization, Rutgers has focused on three essential priorities: to ensure the safety of our community; to affirm and uphold our policies; and to promote dialogue and education.
I’d like to emphasize this last point: dialogue and education. Disciplining a person for breaking a rule is easy. It is much harder to build the trust to question and to understand across difference.
The battle against antisemitism—against bigotry in all its forms—must be waged with education. We began this semester with lectures and films centered on meeting discrimination with humanity. In New Brunswick, we established an Advisory Council on Antisemitism and Jewish Life, whose work continues to be pivotal. Jewish Studies and Middle Eastern Studies faculty brought Arab, Jewish, and other students together in a classroom, not to convince or change minds, but simply to listen to each other. We have planned training and discussion around antisemitism, and we have partnered with the Anti-Defamation League in these efforts.
Like so many other universities this spring, we saw a protest encampment take shape on our New Brunswick campus. It lasted for a little more than 72 hours. When, on the third morning, some student protestors called for a rally to disrupt exams, we moved quickly to shut the encampment down. We made a choice: that choice was to engage our students through dialogue as a first option instead of police action. We had seen what transpired at other universities and sought a different way. Without compromising on my fundamental stance against divestment and boycotts, we agreed to talk and to listen.
If ever there was a time for dialogue and a focus on civil discourse, it is now. We are in a highly polarized time where we are confronted by objectionable and offensive ideas. Part of what universities do is to help the members of our community navigate that reality so that they become better, stronger, and more resilient citizens. We do that by teaching people to be curious, to listen, and to engage in civil discourse.
Finally, let me speak briefly to the Rutgers community. I have heard you over the last several months. I have heard your frustration at injustice in our world, your pain at senseless suffering, and your desire to make Rutgers a stronger community. And for that I want to say, publicly, thank you. We cannot give into the easy path of letting our differences become our divisions. The healing will take time, and through the efforts I mentioned earlier, I am committed to it. We are committed to it.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.