Penn must release names of employees affiliated with Jewish organizations to Trump administration, judge rules

The University of Pennsylvania almost immediately Thursday said it would appeal a federal court judge’s decision that said the school must release lists of people affiliated with Jewish organizations on its campus and comply with other measures in a federal agency’s subpoena.

The university’s comment came a couple hours after U.S. District Judge Gerald J. Pappert ruled the school had to provide the information to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, though it does not have to state which particular organization each person is affiliated with.

“While we acknowledge the important role of the EEOC to investigate discrimination, we also have an obligation to protect the rights of our employees,” Penn said in a statement. “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.”

In a 32-page ruling, Pappert largely dismissed arguments from Penn and others who intervened on the school’s behalf that releasing the information sought by the commission would put employees at risk, create an undue burden on the school, and cause employees to disaffiliate from such groups.

» READ MORE: Penn and Trump administration spar in court over subpoena seeking names of Jewish faculty and students

“Penn and other groups and associations the Court permitted to intervene 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,’” Pappert wrote. “Such allegations are unfortunate and inappropriate.”

The ruling marked a major loss for Penn in its fight to keep employees’ and students’ personal information from the federal government as the EEOC sought to investigate antisemitism, which has been a priority for the Trump administration — especially on college campuses.

Penn in its statement cited the university’s commitment to “confronting antisemitism and all forms of discrimination,” and asserted that the school has “taken multiple steps to prevent and address these despicable events.”

The EEOC declined comment.

» READ MORE: Penn and Trump administration spar in court over subpoena seeking names of Jewish faculty and students

“We refer you to the opinion,” said Victor Chen, EEOC’s director of communications.

The ruling says the university has until May 1 to comply with the subpoena.

Members of Penn’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, who intervened in the case in opposition to the subpoena, said they also anticipate they will appeal and seek a stay to prevent the school from having to release the names in the interim.

“We had already discussed this was a fight we were not going to back down from,” said Lorena Grundy, vice president of the AAUP Penn chapter.

Grundy, a practice assistant professor in chemical and biomolecular engineering, was pleased to see in the judge’s ruling that the EEOC was no longer seeking individual employees’ specific group affiliation, but said that doesn’t go far enough.

“The concern here was about people’s privacy and not releasing information about their religious affiliation,” Grundy said. “It doesn’t really matter which Jewish-affiliated group they are a part of. It matters that you are on this list of Jews that is created. So that to me doesn’t do a lot to help.”

Amanda Shanor, a lawyer for groups representing Jewish faculty, staff and students, called the judge’s decision “deeply” disappointing.

“Whether the government has the power to demand lists like this should be important to every American, no matter their faith or political ideology,” said Shanor, an associate professor of legal studies and business ethics. “The constitutional freedoms at stake — to be able to join religious and civic groups of your choice, to attend events, and teach and research freely without worry that your name and contact information will be put on a government list — are foundational to our democracy.”

Pappert firmly rejected arguments that the discrimination charge by the EEOC was unjustified and that its quest for the roster lists violated the U.S. Constitution.

“For their legal arguments, respondents contend the charge of discrimination is invalid and the subpoena violates the United States Constitution in various ways,” Pappert wrote. “But the charge is valid and the constitutional claims are easily dispensed with.”

The EEOC filed suit against Penn in November after the Ivy League university refused to comply with its subpoena seeking information for an antisemitism investigation it began in 2023 over the school’s treatment of Jewish faculty and other employees.

In its quest to find people potentially affected by antisemitism concerns at Penn, the commission demanded a list of employees in Penn’s Jewish Studies Program, a list of all clubs, groups, organizations, and recreation groups related to the Jewish religion — including points of contact and a roster of members — and names of employees who lodged antisemitism complaints.

The original complaint was launched by EEOC Commissioner Andrea Lucas, now chair of the body, on Dec. 8, 2023, two months after Hamas’ attack on Israel that led to unrest on college campuses, including Penn, and charges of antisemitism. It was also just three days after Penn’s then-president, Liz Magill, had testified before a Republican-led congressional committee on the school’s handling of antisemitism complaints; the testimony drew a bipartisan backlash and led to Magill’s resignation days later.

Lucas, whom Trump appointed to the EEOC during his first term and appointed chair last year, also brought similar antisemitism charges against Columbia University that resulted in the school paying $21 million for “a class settlement fund.”

Pappert said the commission had the right to pursue an investigation that way, despite objections from Penn.

“Congress gave the EEOC broad investigatory powers — including subpoena power — so it could obtain evidence relevant to a charge,“ Pappert wrote. ”And the EEOC does not use its subpoena power to hunt for facts to ‘justify’ a charge. The EEOC is a ‘neutral fact finder’ …”

“Its sole job at this stage is to determine if ‘there is reasonable cause to believe that the charge is true.’” Pappert wrote.

Penn had asserted that it had cooperated extensively with the EEOC, including providing more than 100 documents and over 900 pages.

The private university refused only to disclose the personal information.

“Violating their privacy and trust is antithetical to ensuring Penn’s Jewish community feels protected and safe,” Penn said in a statement at the time.

But Pappert wrote: “Permitting Penn to shield the names of employees who reported harassment would give it a ‘potent weapon’ to interfere with the EEOC’s investigation.”

He also said the university and other intervenors showed no evidence that releasing the lists of names would subject employees to “credible risk of harm.”

Penn professor Claire Finkelstein, however, said that the Penn Faculty Alliance to Combat Antisemitism, of which she is a member, clearly showed the potential for harm in a brief it filed in the case.

The alliance is a group of nearly 200 primarily Jewish professors and includes members who have had concerns about antisemitism at Penn, including faculty who were harassed online after attending a trip to Israel following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on the country, she said.

“It is not at all hypothetical that members of the Jewish community could be at risk from having their identities revealed,” said Finkelstein, a professor at Penn Carey Law School and faculty director of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law. “Disclosure of their identities had already posed a security problem for members of our group.”