A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the University of Pennsylvania to comply with a U.S. civil rights agency's subpoena seeking information on Jewish students, faculty and campus groups as part of a probe into allegations of antisemitism.
U.S. District Judge Gerald Pappert in Philadelphia rejected claims by the Ivy League school and faculty and student groups that complying with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's subpoena would require producing "lists of Jews" in violation of their constitutional rights and could threaten their safety.
The judge, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama, said that, contrary to UPenn's arguments, the EEOC "has an important interest in investigating the charge of discrimination and the subpoena is substantially related to that interest."
He called it "unfortunate and inappropriate" that the school and its supporters in pressing their case compared the EEOC's efforts to protect Jewish employees from antisemitism to the Holocaust and the Nazis’ compilation of “lists of Jews.”
Pappert ordered the university to respond to the subpoena, but without revealing any employee’s affiliation with a specific organization, noting the agency had dropped a request for information on their affiliation with a Jewish-related organization on campus.
The EEOC investigation was prompted in part by a series of incidents, including that someone had shouted antisemitic obscenities and destroyed property at a Jewish student life center, a Nazi swastika was painted on an academic building and “hateful graffiti” was left outside a fraternity.
The investigation has also focused on actions related to protests over the war in Gaza, and UPenn’s response to that and other incidents.
A university spokesperson said in an emailed response that the school is committed to confronting antisemitism and all forms of discrimination and has “taken multiple steps to prevent and address these despicable events.” UPenn plans to appeal.
The investigation comes amid broader efforts by Republican President Donald Trump's administration to target schools and universities that it claims promote 'woke' ideologies, including criticism of Israel and support for transgender rights
“While we acknowledge the important role of the EEOC to investigate discrimination, we also have an obligation to protect the rights of our employees. We continue to believe that requiring Penn to create lists of Jewish faculty and staff, and to provide personal contact information, raises serious privacy and First Amendment concerns. The University does not maintain employee lists by religion,” the university’s statement read.
The EEOC said UPenn had refused to hand over discrimination complaints by Jewish employees, a list of members of Jewish-related campus groups and the names of employees in the school's Jewish Studies Program.
Without that information, the agency cannot contact employees exposed to antisemitic conduct and determine whether the university's response was adequate, the commission said in court filings.
It is not unusual for federal investigators looking into employment discrimination to request identities of employees of a particular religion, to facilitate outreach to people who may have been victims, according to a former federal official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation.
The school, which has 20,000 employees, provided other subpoenaed documents but produced just three complaints filed by Jewish faculty since November 2022 and cited confidentiality concerns in denying the other requests, the EEOC said.
Both companies were slapped with damages of about $6 million.
UPenn has said it provided nearly 900 pages of documents to the commission and offered to inform employees about the investigation and how they could contact the agency, but would not disclose the personal information of Jewish employees without their consent and over their objections.
The investigation comes amid broader efforts by Republican President Donald Trump's administration to target schools and universities that it claims promote "woke" ideologies, including criticism of Israel and support for transgender rights.
UPenn in July agreed to bar transgender women from competing in female-only sports and to erase any athletic records and titles they had earned to settle a separate discrimination probe.
The Justice Department last year announced a multi-agency task force to probe antisemitism in schools and universities, and the U.S. Education Department said it was opening investigations into alleged antisemitic harassment at five colleges.
The EEOC, which recently gained a Republican majority when the Senate confirmed a Trump nominee to a vacant seat, has been involved in some of those cases including a probe of Columbia University that led to a $200 million settlement. Columbia denied wrongdoing.
The case is EEOC v. Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, No. 2:25-cv-06502.
First published: 01:05, 04.01.26