the head of New Jersey's largest public university is taking Heat tonight after facing tough questions from State lawmakers in Trenton Rutter's University president Jonathan Holloway today testified before the assembly budget committee about the financial pressures his school is facing and why the university needs more help from the state but the conversation quickly shifted to the recent protests on ruers and other university campuses and the agreement Holloway made with Pro Palestinian student Dem Min istrators to end their encampment that outraged many GOP members of the legislature who are also calling for separate hearings into the University's handling of the protests along with members of Congress who've requested Holloway to testify before them at the US capital including Representatives Donald Norcross and Josh goheer who today sent a letter to the Rucker Administration accusing leaders of ignoring concerns repeatedly brought by its Jewish faculty members and students senior correspondent Joanna gagas is in Trenton with the story today we come to you uh asking please let's not undo the benefit that you gave us the opportunity you gave us last year a group of college and university presidents appealed to the assembly education committee today laying out their financial needs for the next fiscal year but as Rucker's president Jonathan Holloway shared his fiscal reality he took the opportunity to make his first public statements about his handling of pro Palestinian encampments on his campus protesters began to set up tense in the Vorhees mall on Monday of last week instead of calling in police to clear the protesters which many universities across the country have done Holloway agreed to have his senior staff meet with protest leaders a decision that's brought criticism from many including lawmakers here in New Jersey they issued 10 demands the most significant of which were the were these two to devest from companies doing business in Israel and to sever our ties with Tel Aviv University I've made my position on divestment clear and it is consistent with the policy of the state investment funds I think boycott divestment and sanctions movement is wrong I believe in engagement not isolation hallay did meet eight of the 10 demands they include setting up a meeting with students to discuss divestment and agreeing to form an Arab Cultural Center on campus outside paid agitators were training organizing recruiting and um funding a lot of the protesters including some many at ruter so I think our students have being unfairly used by groups outside of here and knowing that why would we negotiate with groups that have no standing at all the fact of outside agitators funding things I I know it's true and it's incredibly frustrating profoundly frustrating and I don't know how to stop it I mean so I we're on the same page in that in terms of our concern we only talk to students and what was the challenge in that environment it was a deteriorating um environment and they were calling people from off- campus from the community not the Ruckers community and that's what really moved us we've got to remove the encamps as fast as possible Democrats and Republican members alike raising the concerns of some Jewish students afraid to wear their Kias on campus Congressional Representatives Josh gimer and Donald Norcross sent a letter to Holloway saying members of Rucker's Jewish Community have made urgent requests of the administration to take several reasonable steps that would ensure their safety and welcomeness on campus as far as we can tell these requests have been largely ignored assemblyman Gary Sher had a similar question I'm receiving considerable number of phone calls from parents of ruer students uh wanting to know if it's safe to send their children back to school in September and not even a question of safety but why would they want to when they're facing discrimination when they're facing physical and emotional trauma um which has does not seemingly seem to be addressed we have the second largest uh Jewish undergraduate population in the country mostly based in New Brunswick we also have uh the second largest Palestinian student population mostly based in New Brunswick there are no there is no University that has that mix that diversity I do believe is one of our greatest strengths on the question of safety I absolutely do believe it is safe to be a student Holloway acknowledged that anti-Semitism and islamophobia on campus have risen in correlation with the national increase especially since the start of the war we are not immune to that as the State University of New Jersey as an open campus all of those things will come to our campus the question is how we respond to those things the way the police in Security on the campus is elevated president Holloway is testifying before Congress on this issue two weeks from today he's likely to face more tough questioning from Members including representative Norcross who serves on that house education and Workforce Committee in Trenton I'm Joanna agas and J Spotlight news [Music]