What the agreement means

The July 23 agreement stipulates that the EEOC will not enforce the district court ruling nor otherwise seek the information required by the subpoena for the duration of its current investigation into the University. In exchange, Penn not only dropped its appeal of the district court ruling, but agreed to not seek to vacate it.

While Penn agreed to these terms, the intervenors in the suit — which include the national and Penn chapters of the American Association of University Professors and other groups — have not.

On Aug. 4, the intervenors filed a motion to vacate the district court opinion, arguing that although the specific subpoena is not being enforced, they remain vulnerable to “future violations of their constitutional rights” if it stands.

Wharton School professor Amanda Shanor, who represents a group of intervening organizations, wrote in a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian that violations could occur “if the government were again to demand a list of Jews at Penn or another university” so long as “the district court’s opinion is still on the books.”

The government “might argue that the faculty and student groups that challenged this list couldn’t challenge future ones, so they could be targeted on campuses across the country and then have their hands tied,” Shanor wrote.

She added that the intervenors are seeking to vacate the opinion under the precedent set in United States v. Munsingwear, Inc.

According to Shanor, Munsingwear established that “if, through no fault of your own, your case is mooted before you can appeal, then the proper course is for the courts to vacate the opinion you were unable to appeal.”

She added that the vacatur, if granted, would mean the opinion would essentially be “erased from the books.” If the EEOC filed a similar subpoena in the future against Penn or another school, those groups would not be limited in their arguments by preclusive principles.

The intervenors’ motion is currently being considered by the Third Circuit Court. An EEOC spokesperson declined to comment beyond the court filings.

Breaking down the case

2008 College graduate and EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas initially filed a notice of the agency’s probe into antisemitism at Penn in December 2023 — just days before former Penn President Liz Magill announced her resignation. 

In July 2025, the agency filed a subpoena requesting information including membership lists of Jewish-related campus groups and the names of employees in the Jewish Studies Program. The EEOC alleged that Penn “refused to comply” in a lawsuit filed that November, though a University spokesperson wrote at the time that it had “cooperated extensively with the EEOC.”

Shortly after the suit was filed, hundreds of Penn community and faculty members signed a petition criticizing the EEOC’s demands. 

“We offer our strongest support for the University of Pennsylvania’s decision to refuse to collect and share lists of names and personal contact information of Jewish students, faculty, and staff with the federal government,” the petition read.

The following month, Penn motioned to have the suit reassigned to federal Judge Mitchell Goldberg, who had previously dismissed a different antisemitism complaint filed against the University. However, Penn withdrew the motion days later, writing in their notice that the decision was made “in light of the recent retirement of the Honorable Mitchell S. Goldberg.”

At the beginning of 2026, several Penn-affiliated groups filed a motion to intervene as defendants in the lawsuit.

Shanor explained that “a number of national groups” were concerned about the subpoena’s implications, adding that the voices of those directly affected would strengthen arguments about the risks that providing such personal information would create. 

According to Shanor, she and several other lawyers interested in representing intervenors “spoke to different faculty and student groups whose members were targeted by the subpoena who we thought might want to fight it.”

“It was at a time when a lot of people were very scared,” Shanor said. “Several groups said that they were supportive, but that they were too afraid of blowback from the administration to join as intervenors.”

Despite concerns of retaliation, several groups joined a motion to intervene as defendants, which was granted in a Feb. 3 ruling. The decision acknowledged that the intervenors had distinct interests from Penn’s own and meant that, should the University drop out of the suit, the intervenors would be able to continue litigating against the EEOC. 

Meanwhile, the University itself filed a brief on Jan. 20 to criticize the agency’s demands as “disconcerting but also entirely unnecessary.”

A day later, an alliance of over 150 Jewish faculty members filed their own amicus brief, which argued that the subpoena “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.”

The faculty alliance clarified that while all members are Penn employees, the group was not “formally affiliated with the University.”

The back and forth culminated on March 10 in the James A. Byrne United States Courthouse, where federal Judge Gerald Pappert heard oral arguments on the case. The regional attorney for the Philadelphia district argued on behalf of the EEOC and former U.S. Solicitor General Seth Waxman represented Penn.

On behalf of the intervenors, Shanor argued that the subpoena would have a negative effect on free association and added that even a risk of impeding the right to freely assemble is sufficient to render the subpoena unconstitutional. 

Three weeks later, Pappert ruled in favor of the EEOC and ordered Penn to comply with the agency’s subpoena, though he asserted that the University would not have to “reveal any employee’s affiliation with a specific Jewish-related organization.”

In the memorandum, Pappert wrote that the EEOC’s charge was “valid” and that constitutional claims made by the defendants were “easily dispensed with.”

Penn legal experts and community members immediately criticized Pappert’s ruling, expressing concerns over the decision’s constitutionality and privacy implications.

Professors and students also highlighted the decision’s potential risks, with Penn Hillel writing that allowing the government to make lists of Jews at Penn carries “a dark historical resonance” in a social media statement. 

Later in April, Penn moved to temporarily halt the enforcement of the subpoena pending an appeal — which Pappert granted. He reasoned that “Penn does not have a strong chance of prevailing on appeal but makes, narrowly, a showing of irreparable harm.”

“Staying the Court’s order will not substantially injure the EEOC and a stay will allow the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to address in an orderly manner a matter of great public interest,” Pappert added.

Two days after Pappert granted Penn’s motion, the United States Supreme Court ruled that a subpoena demanding the personal information of an organization’s donors violated the First Amendment — an argument that mirrored one made by the intervenors during the hearing a month earlier. 

No further updates were presented by any of the parties until July 23, when Penn announced it had reached a resolution agreement with the EEOC. 

At the time, a University spokesperson wrote that the agency’s “complete abandonment of its intent to enforce the subpoena has vindicated Penn’s two-and-a-half-year fight and mooted the necessity for appeal.”

Shanor emphasized that the result proved how universities that stand their ground against the current administration can have favorable outcomes. 

“We stood up, Penn stood up, and the government folded, and universities across the country, when they stand up, are winning,” Shanor wrote. “But it takes courage — and the backbone to face the administration’s retaliation in the interim.”

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