The University’s Title VI office failed to cooperate with requests to discuss allegations that it overstepped its authority and violated academic freedom, a member of Penn's chapter of the American Association of University Professors alleged.
On Oct. 22, AAUP-Penn released a report that raised questions about whether the University’s Office of Religious and Ethnic Interests may have engaged in unlawful discrimination against Black, Arab and Muslim faculty based on “unsubstantiated accusations of antisemitism.” In an interview with the DP, a member of AAUP-Penn said that OREI did not attend a follow-up meeting with the faculty group on Nov. 3 to hear and respond to questions outlined in the report.
“The Title VI office’ failure to show up for a meeting with faculty to answer simple questions about its functioning is more evidence of the unaccountable nature of the governance at Penn,” the member said.
They added that “the last two years have made very clear the structural powerlessness” of University faculty, calling OREI's decision not to attend AAUP-Penn’s meeting “very concerning.”
A request for comment was left with OREI.
At the meeting, according to the member, OREI would have had the opportunity to answer questions about whether the office “may be targeting faculty members who are members of protected classes for disproportionate surveillance and threats of discipline and investigation.”
“If that were the case, then it is possible that the Title VI office may itself be committing violations of the Civil Rights Act,” they said. “That is the reason that the report issued by the Executive Committee asked the Title VI office to release data on the race, national origin, and religion of the people who it has been calling in for investigatory meetings.”
The Executive Committee previously wrote to the DP that OREI’s practices are “inconsistent, opaque, and in some cases … unauthorized by the university’s written policies,” such as its Faculty Handbook.
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The AAUP-Penn member similarly told the DP that “targeted harassment” constitutes an “important element" of "attacks on higher education and on the right to speak in U.S. society.”
OREI 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 previously 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 directive.
“The University administration does not answer in any meaningful way to faculty, or for that matter, to staff or students, but instead has shown repeatedly that it answers to donors, lobbying organizations, and politicians,” the AAUP-Penn member said.
