LETTER TO EDITOR: U. professors react to Holloway's recent community messages
A group of 184 Rutgers professors from all three University campuses called “Rutgers Faculty Supporting All Our Students” sent The Daily Targum the following “Letter to the Editor” on Tuesday. This letter is a modified version of a letter this group sent to University President Jonathan Holloway on Monday. Today, Holloway released a statement that addresses some of the points raised in the following letter.
We are nearly 200 faculty members who teach and do research in a myriad of fields across all three regional Rutgers campuses. One of the great privileges of our jobs here at Rutgers is the ability to work with our amazingly diverse student body, which includes approximately 7,000 Muslim and Arab students as of 2017, in a state with some of the largest Palestinian, Arab and Muslim communities in the country.
These students and communities are integral to our beloved community here at Rutgers. For their sake, we are compelled to express our shock, dismay and disappointment at University President Jonathan Holloway's message to the University-wide community on October 11 regarding the situation in Israel and Palestine.
Like Holloway, we mourn the loss of all human lives, and we welcome efforts to invite empathy and denounce violence against all civilians. But the deeply one-sided message was a gut punch to the many Rutgers students who have family and friends in Gaza and Palestine. It also failed to acknowledge the ongoing hate and racism directed at our Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students, who have never known a world where they are not vilified as terrorists for simply being brown, Muslim or Arab.
As their instructors, we want Holloway to know that his failure to express concern for our Palestinian, Arab and Muslim student population — who are also suffering pain, anguish and fear — made a large portion of our student body feel devalued and demoralized. It did not go unnoticed that he did not even name Palestinian students in his message.
His mention of the campus and New Jersey State Police — after not even acknowledging that our Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students at Rutgers are also vulnerable to violence during this time — conveyed to them that they would be the ones targeted, not protected. Many of these students have written to us saying they are frightened to come to campus and unable to complete their work due to their exhaustion and fear.
To be blunt: Holloway's message further inflamed campus tensions and exacerbated divisions in our Rutgers community. While we cannot know his intentions, it conveyed to our students that he had clearly chosen a "side," whereas, as educators, we must support all of our students.
We call upon Holloway, in keeping with the ethical and moral values we seek collectively to uphold at Rutgers, to make a statement of concern for Palestinian civilians under assault and the members of our community who have loved ones there and close ties to Palestine.
We also call upon him to acknowledge that Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students are vulnerable at this time and are terrified by the public support for unfolding crimes against humanity in Gaza. We call on him to pledge his support for their safety, protection and overall well-being.
The Rutgers Faculty Supporting All Our Students consists of 184 University professors.
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