In a landmark move to promote accountability and oversight at Rutgers University, the union representing the school’s faculty members is asking a Superior Court judge in Middlesex County to remove two members of the Rutgers Board of Governors who are illegally holding their positions.

William M. Tambussi and Heather C. Taylor are both clearly violating a state law that requires they be residents of Camden and Middlesex counties, respectively.

Residency requirements for Board of Governors members were put in place by the state’s 2012 Higher Education Restructuring Act as a means of ensuring that the interests of each of the school’s three campuses, and the broader communities they serve, were represented on the board.

Yet Tambussi and Taylor both moved out of their respective counties in 2022, leaving Camden and Middlesex counties without proper representation on the governing board of the state’s premier public university.

“We are deeply troubled, but not surprised, that two members of the Rutgers Board of Governors have violated easy-to-understand residency laws for two years,” said Todd Wolfson, president of Rutgers AAUP-AFT, the union that filed the lawsuit along with faculty members who live in Camden and Middlesex counties. “This blatant disregard for the law is par for the course for an institution that has repeatedly failed to provide oversight and ensure transparency about the operations of the state’s leading public university — and that has presided over gaping inequities at the Camden and Newark campuses. Because the Board of Governors has yet again failed to police itself, we are forced to take action. We hope that the lawsuit filed today will lead to the appointment of new members of the Board of Governors who take their obligation to act as a check on an out-of-control bureaucracy.”

Both Tambussi and Taylor were improperly serving on the Board of Governors when the body rammed through approval of a merger of Rutgers’ two medical schools with almost no notice and over the strenuous opposition to Newark’s elected and community leaders, who fear the move will deepen health inequities in New Jersey’s largest city.

Tambussi sold his home in Haddon Heights, Camden County, on June 12, 2022, according to property records.

Those property records list his new address as an apartment in the Curtis Center, a luxury apartment building in Philadelphia that overlooks Independence Hall and the tony Washington Square Park. Meanwhile, Tambussi registered to vote at a home he owned in Brigantine, Atlantic County, a few days before the sale of his Haddon Heights home closed.

Tambussi was first appointed to the Board of Governors in 2014. A key political figure in the South Jersey Democratic machine, Tambussi is known for his anti-union stances, which helped lead to a historic strike by Rutgers faculty members to secure fair pay and improved working conditions.

While Tambussi’s term on the Board of Governors is up later this year, this lawsuit will prevent Tambussi from claiming that he can serve on the body as a holdover appointee — a position Tambussi has served in before.

Taylor, who was appointed by the Board of Trustees in 2019, sold her North Brunswick, Middlesex County home on October 16, 2020, according to county property records. She changed her voter registration on January 22, 2022, to her new home address in Manasquan, Monmouth County.

The union is calling on Governor Murphy and the Board of Trustees to act quickly to appoint members of the Board of Governors who will increase oversight of senior leadership, improve community relations and address continuing inequities that plague the Newark and Camden campuses.

“Governor Murphy proved himself a steadfast friend of labor when he worked with us to win a historic contract last year that set a national standard for improved wages, working conditions and faculty protections,” Wolfson said. “We hope that the Governor works with the Board of Trustees to fill these coming vacancies with candidates committed to working collaboratively with our members and the broader campus community to build a new Rutgers that we can all be proud of.”