PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The federal government is asking the University of Pennsylvania to provide information about membership in Jewish groups to investigate whether anti-Semitism created a hostile environment for employees. A federal judge will decide Tuesday whether to enforce the subpoena.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s investigation into Philadelphia’s Ivy League school cited several incidents, including someone shouting anti-Semitic slurs and vandalizing property at the Jewish Student Life Center, having Nazi swastikas painted on academic buildings and leaving “hateful graffiti” outside a fraternity house.
The investigation also focuses on actions related to the Gaza war protests and Penn’s response to that and other incidents.
Tuesday’s hearing before U.S. District Judge Gerald Pappert dealt with a request the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed in November with the University of Pennsylvania’s Board of Regents seeking enforcement of an administrative subpoena it issued as part of an investigation into allegations that the school subjected its Jewish faculty to an unlawfully hostile work environment because of their national origin, religion or race.
Papert did not say when he would issue a ruling after a four-hour hearing.
The legal dispute began in December 2023, when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission wrote in a court filing last fall that it accused Penn of anti-Semitic conduct and said the school acted “because Jewish faculty and staff may be reluctant to complain about a harassing environment for fear of hostility and potential violence directed at them.”
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission wrote in November that Penn’s “workplace was rife with anti-Semitism,” and it told the judge that investigators believe “identifying those who witnessed and/or suffered the environment is critical to determining whether the work environment was objectively and subjectively hostile.”
Lawyers for Penn wrote in January that the school had been cooperating for more than two years and had turned over about 900 pages of materials.
The school said the only current dispute is the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s “extraordinary and unconstitutional request” to compile lists of employees disclosing their Jewish faith or ancestry, affiliations with Jewish organizations, ties to Penn’s Jewish Studies program and other details, including home addresses, phone numbers and emails.
Vic Walczak, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, said the five groups the organization represents in the case have concerns about the collection and potential use of the information requested by the government.
Walczak said the groups — some of which were specifically Jewish-related and others made up of faculty more broadly — supported investigating anti-Semitism but felt “that’s not the way to do it.”
“We stand with Penn — we are not opposed to the investigation, we are opposed to the court forcing Penn to create a list of participants in Jewish organizations and turn over confidential information, including home addresses,” Walczak said. A Penn spokesman said only in an email that the school would await Papert’s decision.
Penn said it offered to notify all employees of the investigation and tell them how to contact the institution, but was denied by the EEOC last fall. The school argued that the practice “does not violate employees’ privacy, security, or constitutional rights, nor does it echo a horrific period in the Jewish community’s history.”
Messages seeking comment were left Tuesday with EEOC regional attorney Debra Lawrence and the agency’s Philadelphia office.
___
Scolforo is from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
