By Daniel Wiessner
July 23 (Reuters) – The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Thursday abandoned efforts to force the University of Pennsylvania to turn over names and contact information for Jewish faculty and students, backing away from a legal dispute that had become a flashpoint in the Trump administration’s antisemitism investigation of the Ivy League school.
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The agency told a federal appeals court that it would drop a subpoena issued last year and that Penn in turn would end its appeal of a judge’s ruling requiring compliance.
Withdrawing the subpoena does not mean the commission has dropped its broader investigation into Penn, and the agency could still take legal action against the school.
The investigation is part of broader efforts by Republican President Donald Trump’s administration to target schools and universities that it claims promote what it calls “woke” ideologies, including criticism of Israel and support for transgender rights.
Penn said in a statement that none of the personal contact information sought by the subpoena had been disclosed and that it remained committed to battling antisemitism and other forms of discrimination.
An EEOC spokesperson declined to comment.
The commission sued last year to enforce the subpoena, claiming Penn had refused to hand over discrimination complaints by Jewish employees, a list of members of Jewish-related campus groups and the names of employees in the school’s Jewish Studies program.
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Without that information, the agency said, it could not contact employees exposed to antisemitic conduct and determine whether the university’s response was adequate.
Penn said it provided nearly 900 pages of documents to the EEOC and offered to notify employees about the investigation, but declined to provide personal information sought by the agency, citing confidentiality concerns.
U.S. District Judge Gerald Pappert in Philadelphia had in March ordered the university to comply with the EEOC subpoena, though he later paused his decision while Penn appealed.
Pappert said the subpoena was directly related to the EEOC’s obligation to investigate complaints of discrimination filed by workers.
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(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Howard Goller)
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