Over 150 Penn Jewish faculty file brief in support of University response to antisemitism lawsuit

Over 150 Jewish faculty members at Penn supported the University's challenge of an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission subpoena — which requested information about Jewish students, faculty, and groups — in an amicus brief submitted on Tuesday.

The faculty alliance, representing 11 of Penn’s 12 schools, urged the Court to deny the EEOC’s request that the University be required to prove why the subpoena should not be enforced. The brief comes amid an ongoing federal investigation into alleged workplace antisemitism at the University.

“While the Alliance supports the EEOC’s efforts to combat antisemitism at Penn, its members are gravely concerned that the scope of the EEOC subpoena, which effectively seeks full lists of Jewish individuals at Penn and their personal information, invokes the troubling historical persecution of Jews, and threatens the personal security of the Alliance’s members,” faculty wrote in the brief.

On Jan. 20, Penn submitted its own filing describing the EEOC's demands as “disconcerting but also entirely unnecessary.” In response to The Daily Pennsylvanian's request for comment at the time, a University spokesperson wrote that the filing is “comprehensive and speaks for itself.” 

The faculty alliance clarified that while all members are Penn employees, the group is not “formally affiliated with the University” and does not speak on its behalf.

According to the brief, the group was first formed under a different name “after the October 7, 2023 terrorist attacks on Israel and ensuing acts of antisemitism on U.S. college campuses.”

“As Jewish employees at the University of Pennsylvania, many members of the Alliance are potential members of the victim class the EEOC is attempting to support,” the filing continued. “But they would also be targeted by this subpoena.”

The faculty support comes after five Penn affiliates — the national and Penn chapters of the American Association of University Professors, the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School Jewish Law Students Association, the Penn Association of Senior and Emeritus Faculty, and the American Academy of Jewish Research — filed a motion to intervene as defendants in the lawsuit. 

If granted, the motion would allow the groups to be treated as defendants and would require the proceedings to continue even if the University complied with the subpoena.

On Jan. 20, the affiliates also submitted a response to the EEOC’s motion to show cause, arguing that the agency’s request “does not meet the requirements for judicial enforcement.”

They stated that their concerns “far outweigh the government’s need for the information sought by the subpoena, which is based on no charge of any specific unlawful employment practice.”

The EEOC subsequently filed a memo in opposition to the groups’ motion to intervene as defendants, writing that there is “nothing unusual or new” about its investigation and that the intervention is “unwarranted” and “should be denied.”

The agency argued that although the affiliates are “potential victims” of the antisemitism allegations, that fact “does not elevate” their status “to parties with standing to intervene in this administrative subpoena enforcement case.”

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