The Board of Regents approved a resolution supporting an administrative pause in hiring for a Director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at their meeting on July 10.

Former Interim President Jeff Ettinger paused the director search after an offer was extended on June 5 to Stockton University professor Raz Segal, an Israeli historian. The Board recently approved a resolution supporting Ettinger’s proposal.

Ettinger provided an update on the administrative hiring process at the Board meeting on June 13 and 14.

“The center’s leader needs to be able to bring people together around this critically important and sensitive work,” Ettinger said at the Board meeting.

Ettinger said he decided to pause the process to allow added time for consideration. Current Interim Director Joe Eggers will continue in his role until a new director is found.

University law professor Richard Painter said the initial search did not adequately include perspectives from the center’s board or members of the Jewish community. He added he supports the search’s postponement in the interest of including these perspectives.

“If you’re going to call it a Holocaust center, and you don’t do that, it’s going to lead to skepticism toward the program and anger in the Jewish community at the University,” Painter said.

Former Regent Michael Hsu said the key problems with this decision are similar to other concerns with University hires: a faulty hiring process.

Problems with the hiring process at the University stem from a lack of transparency on hiring decisions, Hsu said. He said the hiring of Provost Rachel Croson in 2020 was mainly due to concerns about creating a positive relationship between the Board and former University President Joan Gabel.

The Board approval process for new hires essentially has the Regents approving their consent agenda with a short blurb about each hire, Hsu said.

“By putting it through this way and having a controversial hire you’ve actually put the regents potentially in a bad position because they know nothing about this person and they’re just expected to approve the consent agenda,” Hsu said.

Painter and Hsu filed a complaint in December 2023 asking the U.S. Department of Education to investigate the University for antisemitism.

Segal previously raised controversy with his criticism of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. In an article published Oct. 13, 2023, Segal called the assault and displacement of Palestinians “a textbook case of genocide.”

Following the offer to Segal, professors Karen Painter and Bruno Chaouat resigned from their positions on the center’s board.

Painter said to hold an administrative position such as Director of the Holocaust and Genocide Studies Center, candidates should not hold extreme views.

“They were just looking for someone who would make some big splash by saying something outrageous, and using this position to do that, not realizing that, you know Holocaust center, you got to have someone who is not on any of the extremes,” Painter said.

Despite recent calls for divestment from Israel by University students, Painter said he does not think the two events are related. 

Without Ettinger’s interference, Hsu said the administrative hiring process would have fallen on the Regents instead of Ettinger as he exited his interim position.

“I think President Ettinger probably did the right thing based on what would have happened,” Hsu said.

In a statement sent to faculty and staff earlier this week, President Rebecca Cunningham addressed concerns with the hiring process and affirmed her support for the center and its work.

“We are painfully aware of the national and global challenges to academic freedom, open and unfettered inquiry, and shared governance,” Cunningham said in the statement. “Together, we must be vigilant in upholding these core values, which empower our faculty and staff to advance scholarship, going to the heart of a university’s purpose.”

The next step is for Provost Croson to appoint a faculty-led committee to review how hiring policies intersect with academic freedoms, Cunningham said. Croson will partner with the faculty senate to discuss the challenges of shared governance and academic freedom.

It is unclear when the search for the next director for the Center of Holocaust and Genocide Studies will resume.

Corrections: A previous version of this article misstated that the Board of Regents postponed the search. They approved a resolution in favor of Ettinger’s pause of the search.