Rutgers University's president will step down at the end of the academic year after leading New Jersey's top university in a brief tenure marred by the pandemic and pro-Palestinian protests and encampments on campus.
Jonathan Holloway, 57, who became Rutgers University's first Black president in the summer of 2020, announced that he would step down at the end of this academic year. He said he plans to take a year-long sabbatical before returning to the university as a full-time professor.
“This decision is my own and reflects my own reflections on how I can best serve others,” Holloway said in a posted statement. UNIVERSITY WEBSITE.
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Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway spoke at a House of Representatives committee session in Washington, DC, on May 23 in response to the pro-Gaza student protests that took place on college campuses across the US last spring. (Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Holloway's tenure as university president has been plagued by conflict, including responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and, more recently, the war between Israel and Hamas and anti-Israel protests on campus.
Holloway, who took over in July 2020, laid the foundation for the university to go fully remote and then bring students back to campus with mandatory vaccination requirements in place.
Rutgers University students set up Gaza solidarity camp on campus in Newark, New Jersey (Lokman Vural Eribor/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Rutgers University leaders have faced criticism for failing to act during pro-Palestine campus protests, with Jewish students saying Holloway and university officials “got away” with blatant anti-Semitic behavior on campus.
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One student previously told Fox News Digital that the university's leadership “left Jewish and pro-Israel students to deal with the unruly and obviously anti-Semitic group, and then when the university authorities left, their attention turned to the Jews.”
Police were forced to intervene and protect Jewish students from protesters, they said.
A pro-Palestinian encampment at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey, on May 21. (Getty Images)
Following Holloway's announcement on Tuesday, Rep. Virginia Foxx, a Republican who chairs the Congressional Education and Labor Committee, said the president's legacy will be “empowering anti-Semites and terrorist sympathizers.”
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“If President Holloway resigns today, his legacy will be one of empowering anti-Semites and terrorist sympathizers,” Fox said in a statement. “He must spend his final year at Rutgers doing all he can to change that, including closing the anti-Semitic and pro-terror Center for Security, Race and Rights, enforcing rules, and instituting policies that protect Jewish students and faculty.”
The university has not announced who will take the helm at Rutgers following Holloway's departure.
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“Rutgers University continues to grow and I am confident it will earn the respect it has always deserved,” he said. “I look forward to watching the university thrive in the years to come.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to Rutgers University for comment.
Fox News Digital's Bree Stimson contributed to this report.
