PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The University of Pennsylvania has asked a federal court to deny a Trump administration request for lists of Jewish faculty and student workers.
In a response filed on Tuesday to an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) lawsuit, Penn calls the demand for those lists “extraordinary and unconstitutional.”
The EEOC demanded the lists, it said, as part of an investigation of antisemitism at Penn.
Penn notes in its response that the investigation was not triggered by an employee complaint and does not identify a single unlawful employment practice. Still, Penn says, it cooperated with the investigation to a point but refused to compile lists of Jewish staff with their personal phone numbers and home addresses.
The demand, it says, “is not only disconcerting but entirely unnecessary.”
Penn faculty have asked to join the lawsuit in support of Penn’s position.