Hundreds of students and faculty and staff members at the University of Pennsylvania signed a petition this week in support of their university’s refusal to turn over to the Trump administration names, phone numbers and physical addresses for some Jewish employees.
The administration sued the university on Tuesday, arguing that the Ivy League institution has “refused to comply” with a subpoena from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which is investigating antisemitism on the Philadelphia campus.
The subpoena seeks contact information for employees who have filed complaints about discrimination based on Jewish faith, those who belong to Jewish clubs or groups on campus, and anyone who works in the university’s Jewish studies program, according to the lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
The information is “relevant to the EEOC’s investigation of potential unlawful employment practices, namely religious, national origin, and race-based harassment,” the E.E.O.C. says in a court filing.
A day after the suit was filed, a petition began circulating in the university community aimed at offering “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.”
Amanda Shanor, an associate professor at Wharton, the university’s business school, who helped organize the petition, said the administration’s request was “terrifying.”
“The history of creating lists of Jewish people for the government is one of the most frightening in world history,” Ms. Shanor said in an interview on Friday. “And the idea that this is being done in the interest of the Jewish community is particularly frightening.”
The executive committee of Penn’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors has applauded the university for refusing to comply. Penn Hillel and MEOR Penn, two prominent Jewish groups on campus, issued a joint statement saying they supported the fight against antisemitism but were “deeply concerned” about the E.E.O.C.’s subpoena, adding that “the privacy, consent and safety of Jewish students, staff and faculty cannot be compromised.”
“Collection of Jews’ private information carries echoes of the very patterns that made Jewish communities vulnerable for centuries,” the statement said.
Liz Huston, a spokeswoman for the White House, said the Trump administration would “always aggressively enforce the law, protect public safety and prosecute incidents of illegal discrimination.”
She added, “The University of Pennsylvania should comply with the straightforward subpoena and demonstrate their commitment to safeguarding their students.”
An E.E.O.C. spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
Concerns from the Penn community come amid the administration’s campaign against critics and political opponents of Mr. Trump on college campuses. The federal government has targeted policies about transgender people that don’t conform to the president’s agenda and arrested people on campus who were suspected of breaking immigration laws.
The university sent a letter to the E.E.O.C. in September saying it had cooperated with the investigation for nearly two years, including an offer to notify all employees of the inquiry and provide a way for them to cooperate with the government. “The EEOC flatly rejected this offer,” according to the letter, which was reviewed by The New York Times.
“Knowing that Penn does not maintain information on employees’ religion, the EEOC is demanding that Penn identify employees who participate in events, organizations, and programs for the Jewish community and/or related to Judaism and provide personal information, such as home addresses, personal phone numbers, and personal email addresses for those individuals,” the letter said.
Matthew Grossman, a spokesman for the university, said that the institution had “worked diligently to combat antisemitism and protect Jewish life on campus.”
“We have cooperated extensively with the E.E.O.C., providing over 100 documents, totaling nearly 900 pages; however, we have not turned over to the government lists of Jewish employees, Jewish student employees and those associated with Jewish organizations, or their personal contact information,” Mr. Grossman said. “Violating their privacy and trust is antithetical to ensuring Penn’s Jewish community feels protected and safe.”
The E.E.O.C. has been an important arm of the Trump administration’s pressure campaign against elite universities.
Andrea R. Lucas, now the chairwoman of the E.E.O.C., was quoted in a Justice Department statement saying the commission was “committed to partnering with the Department of Justice to stamp out the scourge of antisemitism on campus workplaces.”
In July, terms of Columbia University’s settlement with the administration included a $21 million payment into a claims fund related to E.E.O.C. complaints. The university also agreed to a $200 million fine, payable to the U.S. government.
And in August, the government sent the University of California a proposal to settle accusations of antisemitism at the University of California, Los Angeles. The proposed terms — which have not led to an agreement — called for the university to put $172 million into a claims fund, along with a $1 billion fine.
But the commission’s approach to information gathering has sometimes caused alarm. Current and former employees of Barnard College, a women’s college affiliated with Columbia, received text messages in April asking them to participate in an E.E.O.C.-related survey that included a question about whether they were Israeli or Jewish.
Barnard’s general counsel soon after told employees that the college had given the commission contact information for the workers but pledged to notify them, if permitted, in the future if the college were to give the government personal information.
Other federal agencies have also sought names as part of the administration’s campaign against antisemitism, leading to turmoil at universities they targeted.
University of California officials faced a backlash earlier this year after they turned over information about roughly 160 people from the University of California, Berkeley, who had been connected, however loosely, to complaints about antisemitism. The disclosures to the federal government came after intense internal debates that pitted Berkeley officials against university system leaders, who ultimately concluded that they had little choice but to respond to the request from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.
Michael C. Bender is a Times correspondent in Washington.
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