Several faculty groups at the University of Pennsylvania have denounced the Trump administration's demand for personal information about Jewish professors, staff and students as government abuse with “ominous historical overtones”. The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is seeking names, personal emails, phone numbers and home addresses as part of its investigation into alleged antisemitism on campus.
In a federal court motion filed on Tuesday, the American Association of University Professors' national and Penn chapters, the university's Jewish Law Students Association, the Association of Senior and Emeritus Faculty, and the American Academy of Jewish Research argued that the demand would require Penn to “create and turn over a centralized registry of Jewish students, faculty, and staff”. They said this intrudes deeply into freedoms of association, religion, speech and privacy enshrined in the First Amendment.
Norm Eisen, co-founder and executive chair of the Democracy Defenders Fund, which is representing the faculty groups alongside the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, said: “That kind of information – however purportedly benign the excuses given for it – can be put to the most dangerous misuse. This is an abuse of government power that drags us back to some of the darkest chapters in our history.”
The EEOC sued Penn in November after the university refused to fully comply with a July subpoena. A university spokesperson said at the time that “violating their privacy and trust is antithetical to ensuring Penn's Jewish community feels protected and safe”. Penn had offered to inform employees of the investigation so that they could contact the agency directly, but the EEOC sought enforcement.
EEOC chair Andrea Lucas said the commission remains “steadfast in its commitment to combatting workplace antisemitism” and accused the university of obstructing efforts to identify witnesses and victims. Steven Weitzman, a professor in Penn's religious studies department and former member of the university's antisemitism taskforce, said the request “instills a sense of vulnerability among Jews” and that the government cannot guarantee the information will not fall “into the wrong hands or have unintended consequences”.
