The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) went to federal court and requested that it would enforce a subpoena that was issued during an investigation into allegations of antisemitism at the University of Pennsylvania.
In December of 2023, the EEOC charged the university of alleged antisemitic harassment against faculty and staff, and of not addressing alleged harassment complaints as well as allowing the incidents to allegedly escalate.
As part of the investigation, the EEOC had subpoenaed the identities of witnesses and victims surrounding the harassment claims.
“An employer’s obstruction of efforts to identify witnesses and victims undermines the EEOC’s ability to investigate harassment. In such cases, we will seek court intervention to secure full cooperation,” EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas said in a statement.
Penn faces allegations of antisemitism
The federal government opened civil rights investigations into seven schools and universities over allegations of antisemitism or Islamophobia in 2023.
The list included three Ivy League institutions — Columbia, Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania — along with Wellesley College in Massachusetts, Lafayette College in Pennsylvania and Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York.
The former president of the University of Pennsylvania, Liz Magill, had testified at a hearing on Capitol Hill focused on antisemitism on Dec. 5, 2023 leading to public backlash over her responses which then led to her resignation.
Then, in March of 2024, Pro-Palestinian faculty at the University of Pennsylvania sued the Ivy League school to stop it from sending sensitive internal material to a congressional committee investigating antisemitism on campus — a probe they call “a new form of McCarthyism.”
NBC10 has reached out to the University of Pennsylvania regarding the EEOC subpoena and we are waiting to hear back.
This is a developing story. Check back here for updates.