Penn AAUP Opposes EEOC’s Demand for Data on Jewish Students and Employees
The University of Pennsylvania chapter of the AAUP has joined the ACLU and a number of other groups affiliated with the institution to file a motion to intervene in a federal lawsuit seeking lists of Jewish organizations on campus and their members. Since July, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has pressed Penn for this information as part of its probe into antisemitism on Penn’s campus. The EEOC request was far-ranging, including a list of the school’s Jewish clubs and rosters of their members as well as a list of employees in the Jewish Studies program and their personal emails, phone numbers and mailing addresses.
After Penn refused to furnish the information, the EEOC sued the school in November to compel the university to honor the subpoena. These organizations hope to block what they call a “centralized registry of UPenn’s Jewish students, faculty, and staff.” Led by the ACLU of Pennsylvania (and other civil rights lawyers) they include two Jewish organizations — the American Academy of Jewish Research and the Jewish Law Students Association of the University of Pennsylvania Carey, Law School — as well as the Penn Association of Senior and Emeritus Faculty, the American Association of University Professors and the AAUP’s Penn chapter. They argue in their legal pleading that “Such compelled disclosure will be experienced as a visceral threat to the safety of those who would find themselves so identified because compiling and turning over to the government ‘lists of Jews’ conjures a terrifying history.”
The EEOC argues it needs this information to contact people who may have experienced antisemitism at the university. Penn and other schools came under intense scrutiny beginning in 2023 for student and faculty response to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Its president at the time, Liz Magill resigned after providing congressional testimony on the school’s response to antisemitism.
If the motion is granted, Penn AAUP and the other groups would become defendants in the lawsuit alongside the university. For more information on the AAUP and Penn AAUP’s motion to intervene: https://www.aaup.org/aaup-joins-suit-opposing-eeoc-subpoena-private-records-jewish-faculty-and-students-penn
