Universities are confronting intensifying pressure around antisemitism investigations that require sharing sensitive employee information with federal agencies. A judge ruled that the University of Pennsylvania must turn over personal contact information for Jewish community members to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to investigate alleged antisemitism on campus. The Penn case reflects a broader pattern from the second Trump administration’s effort to remake aspects of higher education governance. Over the past year-plus, the EEOC has sought employee contact information from other institutions including California State University at Los Angeles and Cornell University. At the California State University system level, officials reported that they were legally obligated to respond to subpoenas while negotiating to reduce the amount of information shared. Similar requests at Columbia targeted faculty linked to a Jewish-studies institute and an antisemitism task force. For campuses, these actions raise immediate compliance, privacy, and governance challenges—especially for offices managing equal opportunity, legal risk, and community relations—while also affecting how faculty and staff participation in internal academic and advisory work is perceived and managed.
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