AAUP gets order over Jewish employee records at Penn ‘off the books’

Dive Brief:

A federal appeals court on Tuesday tossed out an earlier decision by a lower court that would have compelled the University of Pennsylvania to turn over extensive records on Jewish employees to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The EEOC subpoenaed the Ivy League institution in July 2025, but Penn rebuffed the request over privacy concerns. This past March, a district court judge ordered the university to turn over most of the requested information, a decision Penn appealed.
The EEOC dropped its efforts to enforce the subpoena this summer after striking a deal with Penn, which agreed to abandon its appeal. However, the American Association of University Professors pressed on as a party to the case, winning an order vacating the lower court’s ruling and instructing it to dismiss the EEOC’s case this week.

Dive Insight:

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision this week could provide legal justification for universities to resist when asked for similar troves of employee information.

“We are pleased the courts found this was an invasion of privacy,” AAUP spokesperson Kelly Benjamin said in a Wednesday interview. “There were serious implications for religious liberties across the nation and for AAUP members.”

Lorena Grundy, an engineering professor at Penn and vice president of the university’s AAUP chapter, said the faculty group wanted the district court’s decision “off the books” to remove the danger that the EEOC might later try to enforce its subpoena or issue a new one.

Tuesday’s 3rd Circuit decision “confirms this was completely unconstitutional and unjustified,” Grundy said in an interview, describing concerns of a chilling effect on campus over the possibility of the university turning over confidential information to the government.

The EEOC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

As part of a probe into whether the university had a hostile work environment for Jewish employees, the EEOC sought:

Membership rosters of the university’s Jewish organizations from Penn — a request the agency later scaled down.
The names of employees who have filed complaints about antisemitism.
The names and contacts of those who worked in the university’s Jewish studies program.
Staff and faculty who participated in anonymous listening sessions and a survey conducted by the university’s antisemitism task force.
Notes from those listening sessions and de-anonymized responses from the survey.

When resisting the subpoena, Penn invoked the history of antisemitism.

“The EEOC insists that Penn produce this information without the consent — and indeed, over the objections — of the employees impacted while entirely disregarding the frightening and well-documented history of governmental entities that undertook efforts to identify and assemble information regarding persons of Jewish ancestry,” the university said in court documents.

When seeking to join the case in January, the AAUP voiced concerns that Jewish employees would be prevented from freely engaging in campus life if the EEOC executed its subpoena.

“Far from protecting Penn’s Jewish employees, the EEOC’s demands have the opposite effect: the subpoena sparks fear among faculty, staff, and students associated with Jewish-identified groups and activities, potentially deterring participation in Jewish cultural, religious, academic, and political pursuits,” the group said in a filing.

Before Penn and the EEOC ended up in court, the California State University system complied with a similar EEOC request related to an antisemitism investigation. The system provided contact information for 2,600 employees, which prompted a lawsuit and heavy backlash. The system later settled the lawsuit with an agreement requiring it to notify employees before complying with a subpoena related to the EEOC’s probe.