Rutgers Union Calls on Indicted Board of Governors Member to Resign

For Immediate Release: June 17, 2024

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ—The Rutgers union representing more than 6,000 full-time faculty members, graduate workers, and others is calling for Rutgers Board of Governors member William Tambussi to resign or be removed from the Board after Tambussi was indicted on racketeering charges alongside powerful South Jersey Democratic Party boss George Norcross, his politically connected attorney brother Phillip Norcross, and three others.

According to news reports, the six are accused of unlawfully obtaining property and property rights on the waterfront in Camden, N.J.—where Rutgers has a campus—receiving millions of dollars in tax credits for those properties, and controlling government officials in Camden, one of the poorest cities in the country.

“Tambussi has to go,” said Todd Wolfson, president of Rutgers AAUP-AFT. “How can the Board of Governors claim to be legitimate in overseeing the university’s mission—including serving the people of Camden and New Jersey—when the person who’s supposed to represent Camden on the board stands accused of enriching himself at the expense of the city and its campus?”

Earlier this year, Rutgers AAUP-AFT filed a lawsuit to get Tambussi and another Rutgers governor, Heather Taylor, disqualified because neither lives in the county—Camden for Tambussi, Middlesex for Taylor—that their appointment by the governor requires them to.

“This latest accusation against Tambussi underlines our reasons for filing suit,” Wolfson said. “Rutgers University, led by its Board of Governors, has routinely disregarded any need to be transparent and accountable, as required by state law. And now Tambussi has been indicted for preying on the poor, majority–people-of-color city that he’s supposed to represent on the Board. The very first step in repairing the university’s inequitable and disrespectful relationship with Camden is to get rid of Tambussi.”