Since Christie announced his plan to remake higher education in New Jersey last week, Rutgers' Camden campus, a scenic mix of redbrick and industrial design at the foot of the Ben Franklin Bridge, has been overtaken with oppositionist zeal.
Rallies and petitions are being organized at a fast pace, and alumni and faculty are coordinating a public-relations campaign to try to block the proposal in the university system's boardrooms.
Under a 1956 law that made Rutgers, formerly a private college, the State University of New Jersey, the university's board of governors is given the power to "determine policies for the organization, administration, and development of the university."
Alumni from Rutgers-Camden, particularly the law school, which attracts students and faculty from across the country, are campaigning to have the boards vote down the merger, said Timothy Farrow, treasurer of the Rutgers University Alumni Association and a graduate of the Camden law school.
"It doesn't just come down to money, and I hope it doesn't come down to just that," he said. "But the [law school] alumni are unhappy. These are people who brought value back to that school, not just donations, but what they've done with the success they've had in their careers."
The question is whether the statewide Rutgers system's boards would be willing to give up Camden in exchange for obtaining the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Piscataway and two other institutions from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, as Christie laid out last week.
And if they block Christie's proposal, does the governor have the authority to go ahead regardless, setting up a potential legal battle?
Christie's office declined to comment.
