On Tuesday March 31st, 2026, a federal judge ordered the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) to comply with a previous request by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) which instructed the university to release the names and contact information of employees who are members of any Jewish groups or organizations to the agency as a part of an investigation into antisemitic discrimination.
This order comes after UPenn refused to comply with the EEOC’s first request for this information from the university back in July 2025. U.S. District Judge Gerald J. Pappert stated that though the university argues the charge of discrimination is invalid and the subpoena for the employee level information violates the U.S. Constitution (First Amendment religious freedom and free exercise rights), the charges against the university are indeed valid and the request made by the EEOC does not violate the Constitution. Judge Pappert ordered the university to provide the employee information; however, the university does not need to reveal any of the employee’s affiliations with a specific organization.
The subpoena for this information by the EEOC comes in relation to an open investigation of the university of allegations of antisemitic harassment faced by faculty and staff of the university, some of which stemmed from campus protests over the war in Gaza. The agency asked the university to provide the names and contact information of employees that were associated with the school’s Jewish groups and communities, as well as any staff members that filed complaints of antisemitism against the university. At the time of the request, the university failed to provide this information citing that providing this level of detail would remove the employee’s right to privacy surrounding their religious affiliation. UPenn compared this potential list of information to historical Nazis’ Jewish registries, due to the list containing home addresses and telephone numbers next to the employee’s faith and religious affiliations to the Judaic communities. The university did offer an alternative to providing this list, which was to put out a campus wide notice that the EEOC was asking for those that had any information regarding the allegations of discrimination to contact the agency directly. In his March 31 ruling, Judge Pappert stated ‘that is not how the process works’, further clarifying that Title VII puts the trust in the EEOC and not the employer to pursue investigations of discrimination.
Judge Pappert further stated that the request by the EEOC for contact information of the potential victims or witnesses is a common request by the agency during investigations and pointed to the large investigative authority that the EEOC has in discrimination cases as afforded by the Supreme Court. He cited the rulings of the 2017 McLane C. Inc. v. EEOC, which established the broad boundaries of the EEOC’s subpoena power, as well as the 1984 EEOC v. Shell Oil Co. decision which grants the EEOC the evidence gathering power to collect “virtually any material that might cast a light on the allegations against the employer”. The judge acknowledged that while the information requested by the EEOC was “more intrusive and called for greater sensitivity”, the agency’s request was not unreasonable for this investigation.
UPenn has until May 1st to comply with the nine requests of the EEOC’s original subpoena to the university, with a few modifications to the request for employee information. Originally the EEOC’s demanded a list of all ‘clubs, groups, organizations, and recreations groups…related to Jewish religion, faith, ancestry/national origin’ and a list of the members and their personal contact information (phone numbers, email address, and mailing addresses). Judge Pappert clarified in the March 31 order that the university does not need to reveal any employee’s affiliation with a specific organization and the university does not need to provide information regarding three of the universities Jewish-affiliated groups (MEOR, Penn Hillel, and the Chabad Lubavitch House).
The memorandum for this case can be found here: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-paed-2_25-cv-06502/pdf/USCOURTS-paed-2_25-cv-06502-2.pdf.
The EEOC press release regarding the subpoena for this investigation can be found on the EEOC’s newsroom page here: https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/eeoc-files-subpoena-enforcement-action-against-university-pennsylvania-over-antisemitic.