Judge Orders Penn To Comply With Subpoena For Information On Jewish Groups

A federal judge has ordered the University of Pennsylvania to comply with a subpoena from the Trump administration examining alleged harassment of Jewish employees.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued an administrative subpoena to the university in June 2025 to gather evidence and identify potential victims of alleged acts of antisemitism in the wake of the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. The subpoena sought lists of Jewish-linked school groups and organizations.

The university asked the EEOC to revoke or modify the subpoena, but the agency denied that request. After the EEOC moved to enforce the subpoena, the school — alongside a coalition of organizations including the American Association of University Professors — filed a motion challenging the request in January. The school and the coalition expressed concerns that the request could infringe on the rights, safety and privacy of Jewish members of the university by mandating the creation and compilation of a list including ties to their religious identities.

But U.S. District Judge Gerald J. Pappert, an Obama appointee, rejected those concerns, saying the university and the coalition “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'.”

“Such allegations are unfortunate and inappropriate,” the judge wrote.

The Trump administration has launched a number of investigations into alleged antisemitism in higher education, including at Harvard University. The House education committee also recently released a report blaming college “leadership failures and radical faculty and student groups” for driving antisemitism on campus.

The University of Pennsylvania intends to appeal the judge's decision, a spokesperson said.

The subpoena seeks the contact information of employees in Jewish-related organizations on campus and those in the Jewish studies program.

But Pappert said the university must respond to the subpoena without revealing any employee’s affiliation with a specific organization.

A University of Pennsylvania spokesperson said in a statement that "we remain committed to confronting antisemitism and all forms of discrimination, and have taken multiple steps to prevent and address these despicable events."

"While we acknowledge the important role of the EEOC to investigate discrimination, we also have an obligation to protect the rights of our employees," the spokesperson said. "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. The University does not maintain employee lists by religion."

An EEOC spokesperson declined to comment.

"We refer you to the opinion," the spokesperson said.

AAUP President Todd Wolfson expressed disappointment with the court's order and noted the EEOC significantly narrowed its demands.

"That said, the order still compels the disclosure of deeply sensitive information about faculty, staff, and students based on their religious identity," he said in a statement. "This raises serious concerns about privacy, academic freedom, and freedom of association—core principles that are essential to higher education and to a democratic society."

The order is stayed until May 1, according to the AAUP's legal counsel.

"We will continue to oppose any government action that compels the identification of individuals based on religion and will defend the rights of faculty, staff, and students to work and learn without fear of surveillance or targeting," Wolfson said.