UPenn must comply with federal subpoena seeking list of Jewish community members, judge rules

By Danny Freeman, CNN

Philadelphia (CNN) — A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the University of Pennsylvania to comply with a subpoena from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission seeking a list of Jewish community members in what the federal government says is an effort to combat antisemitism on the Ivy League campus.

The university had fought the subpoena, which alarmed several members of Penn’s Jewish community and prompted a monthslong federal court battle. Several people told CNN the government’s quest for a list of names, phone numbers and mailing addresses of Jewish people felt like an invasion of privacy and evoked haunting historical comparisons.

But in a 32-page opinion issued three weeks after oral arguments in a Philadelphia courtroom, US District Judge Gerald Pappert dismissed constitutional concerns and said comparisons between the EEOC’s work and the Holocaust or Nazi Germany were “unfortunate and inappropriate.”

“Though ineptly worded, the request had an understandable purpose – to obtain in a narrowly tailored way, as opposed to seeking information on all university employees, information on individuals in Penn’s Jewish community who could have experienced or witnessed antisemitism in the workplace,” Judge Pappert wrote of the EEOC’s subpoena.

The university plans to appeal the ruling, a Penn spokesperson said in a statement.

“We continue to believe that requiring Penn to create lists of Jewish faculty and staff, and to provide personal contact information, raises serious privacy and First Amendment concerns,” the statement read in part.

“The University does not maintain employee lists by religion,” it added.

The EEOC declined to comment, referring CNN to the judge’s opinion.

The lone constraint the judge made to the subpoena in his ruling was that Penn did not need to “reveal any employee’s affiliation with a specific Jewish-related organization,” nor provide any information about partner organizations not technically run by the university, like Penn Hillel.

Jewish historian and professor Beth Wenger understands the importance of combatting antisemitism and hate on college campuses – including her own, she told CNN in a recent interview. But she was concerned about the EEOC’s demand.

On Tuesday, Wenger said she was “deeply disappointed by the ruling.”

“On a fundamental level, I am concerned about the government being allowed to gather the personal information of Jews – or any other group,” she said.

The EEOC issued its subpoena last summer, aiming to force the university to hand over lists of the school’s Jewish community members as part of an investigation into antisemitism on campus.

That investigation began after intense campus protests of Israel’s response to the October 7 attacks by Hamas – and amid a wave of scrutiny over the university’s handling of allegations of antisemitism.

Penn promised to address those concerns and formed a Task Force on Antisemitism, but the EEOC was evidently not satisfied.

The initial subpoena specifically asked for, among other things, a “list of all clubs, groups, organizations and recreation groups…related to the Jewish religion, faith, ancestry/National Origin,” as well as the names, phone numbers and mailing address of members of those groups.

The subpoena also asked for a list of employees in the Jewish Studies Program and the names of staff and faculty who participated in “listening sessions” on antisemitism, which the university had previously said would be confidential.

“The government has been clear that what they’re looking for is essentially a list of Jewish employees,” said Amanda Shanor, a Wharton professor and attorney who represents members of the Penn community whose personal information is at risk.

In oral arguments on March 10, an attorney for the EEOC said its subpoena was of the “garden variety,” arguing it was part of the investigative process.

The attorney, Debra Lawrence, dismissed concerns about creating a “’central registry’ of Jews” as “political rhetoric,” according to a transcript of the hearing obtained by CNN.

“I can’t imagine anything more relevant in a hostile work environment case than gathering the folks subjected to that environment and finding what went on,” Lawrence said.

The subpoena is unconstitutional on many fronts, Shanor told CNN recently, before Pappert’s ruling. But the attorney argued it is particularly problematic given Penn does not track which employees may be Jewish.

“Unlike things like race or sex or age, that people often times voluntarily tell their employer about themselves, nobody tells their employer about their religious beliefs or their associations with different groups,” Shanor said.

Penn says it does not keep lists of employees based on religious affiliations. If the subpoena is ultimately enforced, Penn says it will itself be tasked with identifying Jewish community members by combing through its staff and organizations.

“Whether the government has the power to demand lists like this should be important to every American, no matter their faith or political ideology,” Shanor said in a statement Tuesday in the wake of the ruling.

“The constitutional freedoms at stake – to be able to join religious and civic groups of your choice, to attend events, and teach and research freely without worry that your name and contact information will be put on a government list – are foundational to our democracy,” the statement said.

“We are optimistic that higher courts will uphold these bedrock constitutional principles and that we will prevail on appeal.”

This story has been updated with additional details.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

CNN’s Carolyn Sung contributed to this report.