Penn alum, federal agency chair defends investigation into antisemitism on campus

The chair of the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission defended the agency’s stance in its ongoing antisemitism lawsuit against Penn at a conference last Friday. 

2008 College graduate and EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas told the crowd at the April 16 event that there “is no other way to protect the victims of harassment or discrimination” without collecting their personal information. The conference, hosted by Harvard University’s Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, brought together academics, legal experts, and Jewish community advocates.

The EEOC sued Penn last November, alleging that it failed to provide documents for the agency’s investigation into Penn’s handling of antisemitism complaints. Lucas led the federal agency’s probe into potential workplace antisemitism on campus by, at times, directly contacting Jewish students and faculty. 

A request for comment was left with an EEOC spokesperson. 

“At some point, either the government will know information related to individuals’ religion, or we will not be able to enforce the laws on their behalf,” Lucas said at the event. “Fundamentally, the Jewish community does have to decide, do you want to have civil rights enforcement in this space?”

Last year, hundreds of members of the Penn community signed a petition criticizing actions taken by the EEOC. Faculty and student groups highlighted concerns about the historical connotations of collecting personal information on Jewish individuals.

“I have reason to believe there are victims there, but I may not know all of them,” Lucas added. “So there’s going to be information gathering,” she said, adding that the EEOC would do the same for Black complainants alleging discrimination.

“I can’t protect Black workers if I don’t collect information about the Black workers who applied to a job,” Lucas explained. “That’s the nature of civil rights enforcement.” 

Lucas’ comments come after a federal judge ruled in favor of the EEOC’s subpoena last month. 

In the March 31 ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Gerald Pappert wrote that Penn and intervening groups “significantly raised the dispute’s temperature by impliedly and even expressly comparing the EEOC’s efforts to protect Jewish employees from antisemitism to the Holocaust and the Nazis’ compilation of ‘lists of Jews.’” 

Pappert wrote at the time that the EEOC’s charge is “valid” and the University’s arguments on the subpoena’s constitutionality are “easily dispensed with.” 

In the following days, several legal experts and community members criticized Pappert’s decision.   

“We take our confidentiality duties very, very seriously,” Lucas said on the information requested by the subpoena. “Title VII provides for criminal penalties for anyone to disclose information in an ongoing charge to the public. So everything is secured under criminal penalty.”

Earlier this month, Penn filed a notice of appeal alongside a motion requesting that the court temporarily halt enforcement of the ruling. In the filing, University lawyers argued that Penn was “likely to prevail on the appeal” and would face “irreparable injury absent a stay.”

If the University’s motion to stay is denied, Penn must comply with the subpoena by May 1.

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