Rutgers Flag to Be Lowered to Honor Victims of Attacks

November 23, 2015

Members of the Rutgers Community:

Today I ordered that the Rutgers University flag be lowered to half-staff to recognize the tragic passing of two persons affiliated with the University who were murdered by terrorists last week.

Anita Datar, a 1995 Rutgers College graduate, was killed by terrorists in the attack at the Radison Blu Hotel in Bamako, Mali, that took 21 lives on Friday. She was in the African nation on a mission funded by US Agency for International Development (USAID) to expand and improve public health.

Ezra Schwartz, an 18-year-old resident of Sharon, Massachusetts, who had accepted admission to Rutgers Business School and was taking a gap year in Israel, died in an indiscriminate attack that took the lives of three people when a gunman opened fire on a line of traffic in the West Bank on Thursday.

Anita Datar had an enormously accomplished career and Ezra Schwartz had enormous potential. Their tragic deaths are a reminder to us all of the fragility of life and the urgent need for better understanding among us all.

Sincerely,

Robert Barchi