Miller Center Secures Gift to Help Vulnerable Communities

Rutgers’ Miller Center for Community Protection and Resilience announced a $1.2 million gift that will support the center’s research and programming geared toward serving and securing vulnerable communities by improving relations with police. The gift was made by Paul S. Miller, the center’s founding donor and a longtime supporter of Rutgers University; with this gift, Miller’s donations to Rutgers approach $5 million.

“Protection of our most vulnerable populations has been one of the great challenges of this nation throughout its history,” said Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway. “Offering this safeguard is essential to the health of our society, and critical to the mission of Rutgers as an institution of public higher education. I want to thank Paul Miller for his recognition of the importance of this mission, and for his outstanding generosity to Rutgers through the years.”

“The events of this year—the disproportionate effects of the pandemic and the social unrest following the killing of George Floyd—have underscored for me the importance of reaching out to vulnerable populations both here and abroad to improve their security and their prospects,” said Paul S. Miller, founding donor of the Miller Center. “I am proud of the efforts the Miller Center has undertaken to date, as reflected in the new website, and believe those efforts position the center to take a prominent role in addressing the greatest public safety challenges of our time.”

“Over the past five years, the Miller Center has worked on the ground to improve the relationships of vulnerable populations with police and government officials from Brussels to Chicago to Whitefish, Montana,” said John J. Farmer, Jr., director of both the Miller Center and the Eagleton Institute of Politics. “We have established partnerships with universities from Sweden and the United Kingdom to New Jersey, and with worthy organizations like the International March of the Living and have engaged in cutting-edge research on the emergence of online hate and the effects of the COVID-19 on vulnerable populations. Our work, which is reflected on the website we launch today, is significant but just the beginning. These funds will enable the Miller Center to build on the real-world progress we have made in improving the status of vulnerable populations.”

The gift will help the Miller Center continue to expand its areas of research and impact. This year, the center conducted research about the security and safety of vulnerable communities, including:

• Pandemic policies
• Guidance and best practices for houses of worship to follow to mitigate the risk and spread of COVID-19
• Social media mobilization of extremist groups
• Police and law enforcement reform
• A new report and action guide to provide vulnerable communities and houses of worship policies and practices to enhance the security and safety of their communities during the holiday season

This week, the Miller Center also launched its new redesigned website which features an online library that houses the center’s research and published writings and provides user-friendly ways students, researchers, and the public can learn more about the center’s work and upcoming programming.

The Miller Center, affiliated with Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute of Politics and Rutgers Law School, works with vulnerable communities around the world to enhance their safety and standing in society by improving their relationships with law enforcement, with other government agencies and with other vulnerable communities.