The House Education and the Workforce Committee has expanded its investigation into university failures to push back against the uptick in incidents targeting Jewish students since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas in southern Israel, now focusing on Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J.
The school’s top leaders received a letter on Wednesday from the committee’s chair, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), in which she expressed “grave concerns regarding the inadequacy of Rutgers’ response to antisemitism on its campuses.”
Foxx wrote that the university “stands out for the intensity and pervasiveness of antisemitism on its campuses. Rutgers senior administrators, faculty, staff, academic departments and centers, and student organizations have contributed to the development of a pervasive climate of antisemitism.”
The letter provides evidence for Foxx’s claim, with eight of its 14 pages offering examples of Jewish hatred featured on campus.
Sahar Aziz, the director of the Rutgers-Newark Center for Security, Race and Rights, features prominently in the letter, which describes the organization being “notorious as a hotbed of radical antisemitic, anti-American, anti-Israel and pro-terrorist activity.”
Foxx concluded her correspondence by demanding a slew of documents across 19 categories such as reports of antisemitic incidents, disciplinary processes relating to hate crimes, evidence of the school’s policies ensuring a safe learning environment and communications relating to antisemitism received by the Rutgers Board of Governors.
Dory Devlin, Rutger’s assistant vice president of news and media relations, told JNS that the school “takes claims of antisemitism—and all forms of bias and intolerance—very seriously. The university received the committee’s letter and will respond directly to the chairwoman.”
