\n<\/p>\n
The Trump administration\u2019s effort to use the problem of antisemitism on campuses as an excuse to bend universities to its will has been well documented. Reaching into its bag of tricks, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sent a subpoena to the University of Pennsylvania last July seeking the names of Jewish employees who\u2019d filed complaints alleging antisemitism or discrimination based on religion or ancestry\/national origin, as well as employees affiliated with its Jewish studies program, Jewish organizations or community events. <\/p>\n
When the university refused, the EEOC filed a lawsuit. It asked a federal judge to enforce its subpoena.<\/p>\n
It claimed to need the personal information about Penn\u2019s Jewish employees to investigate claims that Penn engaged in \u201cunlawful employment practices by allowing antisemitic harassment to persist and escalate throughout its Philadelphia campus and creating a hostile work environment for Jewish faculty and staff.\u201d <\/p>\n
On Jan. 20, Penn responded by calling the EEOC\u2019s demand \u201cextraordinary and unconstitutional.\u201d It was right to do so. <\/p>\n
As three University of Pennsylvania faculty members note in an op-ed in The Guardian<\/em>, \u201cIf history teaches us anything, it is that making lists of Jews, no matter the ostensible purpose, is often a prelude to their and others\u2019 persecution\u00a0\u2026 Even if the EEOC is collecting Jewish community members\u2019 personal data in a good-faith effort to ensure safety, lists of Jews can later be leaked, or deployed to other, more sinister ends.\u201d <\/p>\n Such concerns seem particularly warranted at a time of rising levels of antisemitism and violent hate crimes against Jewish Americans. One recent survey found that \u201cone-third (33\u00a0percent) of American Jews say they have been the personal target of antisemitism\u2014in person or virtually\u2014at least once over the last year.\u201d Moreover, \u201cNearly six in 10 (56\u00a0percent) American Jews say they altered their behavior out of fear of antisemitism\u201d in 2024.<\/p>\n In its suit, the EEOC said it is investigating \u201ca pattern of antisemitic behavior that has been publicly displayed throughout Respondent\u2019s campus.\u201d It claimed that the list of Jewish employees would enable it to reach out to them: \u201cThroughout its investigation, the EEOC has endeavored to locate employees exposed to this harassment and to identify other harassing events not noted by Respondent in its communications, but Respondent has refused to furnish this information, thereby hampering the EEOC\u2019s investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n But what the EEOC is offering, many Jewish employees at Penn do not want.<\/p>\n As the three Penn faculty members pointed out in their Guardian<\/em> op-ed, \u201cJewish and non-Jewish community members at Penn and beyond have united to support the university\u2019s resistance to compiling and releasing data about members of campus Jewish organizations, the Jewish studies department, and individuals who participated in confidential listening sessions and surveys about antisemitism.\u201d<\/p>\n On Jan. 20, the Penn Faculty Alliance to Combat Antisemitism, an association whose membership consists predominantly of Jewish faculty, asked permission to file a friend-of-the-court brief opposing the EEOC\u2019s effort. Their brief, which they appended to their request, pointed out that \u201cdisclosure of sensitive information about the members of Jewish organizations\u00a0\u2026 burdens Jewish association rights, unintentionally echoing troubling attempts in both distant and recent history to single out and identify Jews\u2014a historically persecuted minority.\u201d<\/p>\n While expressing appreciation for the \u201cEEOC\u2019s concern regarding antisemitism on university campuses,\u201d the alliance noted that by requesting lists of Jewish employees, the EEOC was \u201cexacerbating the fear and uncertainty of Jewish faculty at Penn.\u201d It called the EEOC\u2019s subpoena \u201can ill-designed means for addressing workplace antisemitism, particularly because the agency could accomplish its goals in ways that would better protect the university\u2019s Jewish faculty and staff, as well as their First Amendment rights.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIll designed\u201d is one way to put it, but more important is the point that Jewish faculty at Penn make about the burden on association rights and their fear. As for many Americans, that fear is in part based on mistrust of the Trump administration.<\/p>\n It is born of the administration\u2019s growing record of disregard for constitutional rights and basic human dignity, and of its seeming willingness to do anything to accomplish its goals.<\/p>\n Almost 70 years ago, the United States Supreme Court made clear that the government cannot demand and force an organization to turn over its membership list absent a \u201ccompelling justification\u201d for doing so. In NAACP v. Alabama (1958), the court found that Alabama\u2019s request for the NAACP\u2019s membership list \u201ctrespasses upon fundamental freedoms,\u201d ruling that \u201cthe effect of compelled disclosure of the membership lists will be to abridge the rights of its rank-and-file members to engage in lawful association in support of their common beliefs. \u201c<\/p>\n In that case, the court recognized what it called \u201cthe vital relationship between freedom to associate and privacy in one\u2019s associations.\u201d<\/p>\n The University of Pennsylvania, in its response to the EEOC lawsuit, says that the EEOC \u201cseeks to invade employees\u2019 private affairs and compel the disclosure of their associations without articulating any compelling interest justifying that serious burden on First Amendment rights.\u201d It went on to say that \u201cif the information demanded were somehow made public, the individuals identified on the lists could face real risk of antisemitic harm.\u201d<\/p>\n And, similar to the case with the NAACP, Penn suggested that disclosure of membership in Jewish organizations \u201cwill have a substantial chilling effect on the association with Penn Jewish organizations and participation in Jewish life on campus.\u201d<\/p>\n The EEOC\u2019s effort to access such information is clearly unconstitutional. It is now up to the courts to stop that effort. <\/p>\n Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Trump administration\u2019s effort to use the problem of antisemitism on campuses as an excuse to bend universities to its will has been well documented. Reaching into its bag of tricks, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sent a subpoena to the University of Pennsylvania last July seeking the names of Jewish employees who\u2019d filed complaints<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[522,11616,2199,5481,440,10448],"class_list":{"0":"post-43275","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-demand","9":"tag-employee","10":"tag-jewish","11":"tag-lists","12":"tag-opinion","13":"tag-unconstitutional"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}