Judge weighs subpoena in antisemitism investigation at Penn

A federal judge heard Tuesday arguments over the federal government’s request for information from the University of Pennsylvania on the membership of Jewish groups, part of an investigation into whether antisemitism has created a hostile work environment for employees. The judge will decide whether to enforce a subpoena.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is investigating the Ivy League school in Philadelphia after several reported incidents, including antisemitic slurs and property damage at a Jewish student life center, a Nazi swastika painted on an academic building, and “hateful graffiti” left outside a fraternity.

The probe has also examined the university’s handling of protests over the war in Gaza and its response to other incidents.

Tuesday’s hearing before U.S. District Judge Gerald Pappert focused on the EEOC’s request, filed in November against Penn’s Board of Trustees, to enforce an administrative subpoena as part of its investigation into claims that Jewish faculty and employees have been subjected to an illegal hostile work environment based on religion, race or national origin.

Pappert did not say when he might rule after the four-hour hearing.

The legal dispute began in December 2023, when the EEOC accused Penn of a pattern of antisemitic behavior, as it wrote in a court document last fall, and said it was acting “in light of the probable reluctance of Jewish faculty and staff to complain of a harassing environment due to fear of hostility and potential violence directed against them.”

The EEOC wrote in November 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.”

Penn’s lawyers wrote in January the school had cooperated for more than two years, turning over about 900 pages of material.

The school has said the only current dispute is what it called the EEOC’s “extraordinary and unconstitutional demand” that it put together lists of employees that reveal their Jewish faith or ancestry, associations with Jewish organizations, affiliation with Penn’s Jewish studies programs and other details — including home addresses, phone numbers and emails.

Vic Walczak, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, said the five groups his organization represents in the case are concerned about the collection and potential use of the information the government has demanded.

The groups — some that are specifically Jewish-related, and others that consist more broadly of faculty — support investigating antisemitism but feel “this is not the way to do it,” Walczak said.

“We’re on the same side as Penn — we’re not opposing an investigation, what we’re opposing is the court forcing Penn to create, essentially, lists of participants in Jewish organizations and turning over confidential information, including home addresses,” Walczak said. A Penn spokesperson said in an email only that the school will await Pappert’s decision.

Penn says it offered to notify all of its employees about the investigation and to tell them how to get in contact with the agency, but that was rejected by the EEOC last fall. The school argued that approach would “not invade employees’ privacy, sense of safety, and constitutional rights or echo terrifying periods of history for Jewish communities.”

Messages seeking comment were left Tuesday for the EEOC’s regional attorney, Debra Lawrence, and at the agency’s Philadelphia office.