University of Oregon cuts spare Judaic studies faculty who had raised alarm
After dire warnings, the university says no tenured faculty will lose their jobs
The University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon. Photo by Stock photo
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(JTA) — A round of layoffs at the University of Oregon that Judaic studies professors had feared would affect their program appears to have spared them entirely.
No tenured or tenure-track faculty or degree programs will be affected as part of the latest round of budget cuts intended to address a $29 million deficit, university administrators announced late Monday. Around 20 unspecified “career faculty” positions will be eliminated, and vacant positions will be left unfilled, but the stated cuts would leave positions including the school’s tenure-track chair in Holocaust studies unchanged.
Requests for comment to the university and to senior Judaic Studies faculty were not immediately returned. The school’s provost told KLCC, the local NPR station, that the school had “prioritized the university’s academic mission and student success,” while the head of the faculty union credited their advocacy for staving off the worst of the cuts.
The news comes after weeks of dire warnings from the school’s faculty, during which they had rallied around what they said were concrete threats to Judaic studies and Holocaust studies and to tenured positions more generally. Their concerns come amid budget cuts at several universities amid pressure on higher education from the Trump administration, which has yanked funding from some schools under the stated goal of fighting antisemitism.
Leaders of the national Association of Jewish Studies; the Genocide and Holocaust Studies Crisis Network; and dozens of Jewish studies scholars from around the globe had joined a full-court press to preserve Jewish studies. One letter to the school’s president and provost from the latter group stated bluntly, “Why don’t UO’s administrative leaders want UO students to learn about Jews?”
But Jordan Schnitzer, a Portland-area Jewish philanthropist whose family endowed the Judaic Studies department at Oregon and who recently gave the school another $25 million donation, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency before the cuts were announced that he believed the faculty would be safe.
The frenzy at Oregon comes amid particular pressure for Jewish studies, as some universities striking deals with the Trump administration to restore funding have committed to supporting the field. Some Jewish studies faculty remain wary at the perception that the field is getting special protection from an administration that claims to be fighting antisemitism.
“The Trump administration’s ‘deals’ turn Jewish studies into the court Jew of old,” a trio of established scholars in the field wrote in a recent Chronicle of Higher Education op-ed. “Left unchecked, this spells disaster for the field. By stoking resentment and deflecting criticism from those with power, these deals cultivate conditions that, historically, produced vitriolic forms of antisemitism.”
