The Executive Committee of Penn’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors accused the University’s Title VI office of overstepping its authority and threatening academic freedom in a statement released on Wednesday.
The Oct. 22 statement alleged that Penn’s Office of Religious and Ethnic Interests engaged in unlawful discrimination, adding that faculty were called in for meetings over “unsubstantiated accusations of antisemitism.” The Executive Committee wrote that these meetings have discouraged free speech while promoting an overly vague definition of on-campus antisemitism.
“Even when meetings do not result in further investigation or disciplinary action, summoning faculty members every time the office receives a complaint, however unsubstantiated, chills faculty members’ research, teaching, and intramural and extramural speech,” the Executive Committee wrote.
The office was established in December 2024 in response to rising incidents of antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other religious biases at Penn — as well as on recommendations from the University Task Force on Antisemitism and the Presidential Commission on Countering Hate and Building Community.
OREI’s title — which originally stood for “Office of Religious Equity and Inclusion” — was changed in spring 2024 amid University-wide rollbacks of diversity, equity, and inclusion language, initiatives, and programs responding to federal directives.
In the statement, the Executive Committee asked OREI to “clarify and modify its procedures to ensure the transparency, consistency, and fairness essential to carrying out the office’s mission,” posing 18 questions for the office to answer publicly.
A University spokesperson declined a request for comment. A request for comment was left with OREI.
“During these meetings, faculty members, who in some cases had already been subject to targeted harassment, were expected to … express contrition or offer some concession to their unidentified accuser, or face the possibility of disciplinary action,” AAUP-Penn wrote.
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The statement cited examples of actions that have prompted meetings with OREI, including assigning readings, conducting research, and engaging in personal acts that were viewed as pro-Palestinian or political in nature.
The Executive Committee added that OREI has initiated meetings based on “surveillance of social media, without having received any complaint, and has warned them preemptively not to criticize the Israeli government.”
In an interview with The Daily Pennsylvanian, a member of AAUP-Penn’s Executive Committee stated on behalf of the group that “the Title VI office has not defined how it is interpreting antisemitism, and that leads to this vagueness and broad interpretation that is hard to figure out.”
“If someone could interpret [something] as antisemitism … then they have to investigate that, and I don’t think that we should be uncritically accepting whatever definition different people use,” the member said. “It is clear to us that it’s been speech in favor of justice in Palestine and against Israel that has been disproportionately silenced.”
They added that “there should not be an administrative office deciding what can get published and what cannot.”
The statement similarly highlighted that OREI’s practices “pose threats to … academic freedom” because even complaints can intimidate faculty and encourage them “to modify their scholarship and teaching in order to avoid further investigation and possible discipline.”
The Executive Committee wrote that OREI’s practices are “inconsistent, opaque, and in some cases … unauthorized by the university’s written policies,” such as its Faculty Handbook.
The member explained that extramural speech is only grounds for discipline in the "extremely rare case where it demonstrates" that a faculty member is “unable or unqualified to do their job.” They noted that the only way to determine that is through a "formal review of their entire record" by fellow faculty members.
The member also emphasized AAUP-Penn’s “support” for Title VI and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“The issue here is that that law that is so important is being twisted in ways that don’t help fight discrimination, but do certainly chill speech and academic freedom — and potentially may be discriminatory in of themselves,” they said.
“Harassing, surveilling, intimidating, and punishing members of the University community … does nothing to combat antisemitism, but it can perpetuate anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, and anti-Palestinian racism, [and] muzzle political criticism of the Israeli government by people of any background,” the Executive Committee wrote.
In addition to its statement, AAUP-Penn invited OREI representatives to an upcoming meeting. The Executive Committee member characterized the invitation as a “sincere” attempt to make the office’s practices more “transparent and equitable.”
OREI co-Director Majid Alsayegh previously wrote to the DP that OREI had received “broad support” from “every facet of the University,” adding that the team’s efforts had been “welcomed by the Penn community.”
“I hope that OREI will send a representative to that meeting, and we would be more than happy to work with them to ensure that their concerns with faculty are addressed,” the Executive Committee member said.
