Judge Orders Penn to Disclose Data on Jewish Employees in U.S. Discrimination Investigation

A federal judge has mandated that the University of Pennsylvania supply records concerning its Jewish employees to a federal body, which is investigating claims of antisemitic discrimination. However, the judge clarified that the university is not required to disclose any employee’s specific group affiliations.

Judge Gerald Pappert of the U.S. District Court ruled that employees may opt out of participating in the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s probe, yet emphasized the necessity for the agency to contact them directly. This step is crucial to assess any evidence of discriminatory practices.

In largely supporting the administrative subpoena, Judge Pappert stipulated that the university isn’t obliged to reveal any employee’s links with Jewish-related organizations, nor to supply details about three specific Jewish-affiliated groups. The compliance deadline is set for May 1.

A university representative, responding via email, asserted that the institution is dedicated to combating antisemitism and all discrimination forms. The spokesperson highlighted that Penn has implemented several measures to prevent and address such incidents. The university intends to challenge the ruling.

“While we recognize the EEOC’s essential role in probing discrimination, we also must safeguard our employees’ rights,” the statement declared. “We remain concerned about the privacy and First Amendment implications of creating lists of Jewish faculty and staff and sharing their contact information. The University does not categorize employees by religion.”

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.

Pappert wrote that the university and others who joined the litigation “significantly raised the dispute’s temperature by impliedly and even expressly comparing the EEOC’s efforts to protect Jewish employees from antisemitism to the Holocaust and the Nazis’ compilation of ‘lists of Jews.’” The judge called that “unfortunate and inappropriate.”

Pappert wrote that Penn and the others who opposed the subpoena were primarily concerned about linking employees to Jewish groups, saying “the EEOC no longer seeks any employee’s specific affiliation with a particular Jewish-related organization on campus.”

The judge exempted information about three Jewish organizations from the subpoena — MEOR, Penn Hillel and Chabad Lubavitch House. Executive directors with all three groups had declared in court filings they were legally and financially separate from the university.

“The privacy of persons making use of Chabad at Penn’s services and facilities is vital to Chabad at Penn’s operations,” Rabbi Menachem Schmidt said in a January declaration. “Chabad at Penn is accordingly concerned about the impact that non-consensual disclosure of personal information could have on its mission and activities.”

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission 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 Penn’s response to that and other incidents.

The EEOC claimed in a November filing that Penn’s “workplace is replete with antisemitism,” and it told the judge that investigators think “identification of those who have witnessed and/or been subjected to the environment is essential for determining whether the work environment was both objectively and subjectively hostile.”