Please click the “Start Writing” button to ask your NJ Senator and Assembly Members to support legislation that will stop the merger of the New Jersey Medical School in Newark and Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick.

Newark residents experience disproportionately worse health outcomes relative to other state residents, including higher rates of asthma, diabetes, heart disease, and health consequences from childbirth. The community has access to far fewer financial resources relative to residents in other parts of the state. Newark residents are often unable to access services from private healthcare providers, so they tend to rely on Medicaid and health care services at the New Jersey Medical School and University Hospital, a public institution specifically charged with providing medical care and education to the North Jersey community.

Yet Rutgers University is trying to merge New Jersey Medical School with Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick — opening the way for the university to pull critical health resources out of the Newark community.

This is a violation of the Newark Agreement. In 1968, against the backdrop of the 1967 Newark Rebellion, the NJ College of Medicine and Dentistry in Newark collaborated with the Newark community and local, state, and federal governments to create a legally binding document known as the Newark Agreements, which established schools of medicine and dentistry for medical education and research as an academic institution, as well as constructed a new hospital.

The present merger threatens this legally binding agreement with the community.

Rutgers’ track record for more than a decade shows that it historically siphons resources away from in-need communities toward its facility in New Brunswick, including directing 95 percent of new mission support funds ($250 million) to its New Brunswick campus since 2018. This resource-hoarding puts Newark residents at risk. (When the New Jersey Medical and Health Sciences Education Restructuring Act became effective on July 1, 2013, most units of UMDNJ medical and dental schools across New Jersey became part of Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences (RBHS) to form a health science division of Rutgers the State University of New Jersey. Oversight of the medical school went to RBHS and University Hospital became an independent NJ state entity.)

Stopping this proposed merger is the best way to protect Newark residents.

Such a merger puts University Hospital at risk, as it will lose resources, too. Since the medical school merger calls for a single Dean located in New Brunswick, Rutgers won’t be able to truly partner with University Hospital as the Agreement envisioned. (The Dean sitting on two boards simultaneously while having her compensation influenced by another health system is a clear conflict of interest.) Additionally, this erosion of services threatens educational, training, employment, and economic opportunities within the community, all in clear violation of the Newark Agreements.

The Rutgers Board of Governors voted to approve the medical school merger in 2023, despite opposition from the University Senate, students, staff, faculty and the community — as well as opposition from Newark’s delegation to the state Legislature.

The merger won’t be finalized until 2026. Please contact your state legislators now and demand they pass legislation to stop this proposed merger from taking place.