Trump administration drops subpoena for list of Jews at Penn

PHILADELPHIA (CN) — The Trump administration has ended its push to force the University of Pennsylvania to release a list of the names and personal contact information of Jewish people on campus, according to court documents filed Thursday.

While tied to an ongoing federal inquiry into on-campus antisemitism accusations, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s now-dropped subpoena against Penn drew intense scrutiny from both the university and Jewish-affiliated organizations that characterized it as intrusive and Nazi-esque.

“With the support of many members of the community who have stood with Penn throughout, the university has been able to protect its employees’ rights and none of the subpoenaed personal contact information was disclosed,” a Penn spokesperson told Courthouse News Thursday. ”Penn remains committed to fighting antisemitism and all other forms of discrimination, to ensure everyone it serves can learn, work and thrive.”

When asked for comment, a commission spokesperson declined to add anything beyond court filings.

Filed in July 2025, the commission’s administrative subpoena demanded Penn provide a list of its employees in groups and organizations “related to the Jewish religion,” including their names, mailing address and personal phone numbers.

When Penn refused to do so, the commission promptly filed an enforcement action.

Fighting against enforcement of the subpoena in Philadelphia federal court, Penn and a collection of Jewish-affiliated organizations compared the Trump administration’s demands to those of Nazi Germany, voicing that “allowing regimes to collect lists of Jewish people has not boded well for their safety.”

“The EEOC insists that Penn produce this information without the consent — and indeed, over the objections — of the employees impacted while entirely disregarding the frightening and well-documented history of governmental entities that undertook efforts to identify and assemble information regarding persons of Jewish ancestry,” the university wrote in a January court filing.

However, U.S. District Judge Gerald J. Pappert ultimately found Penn’s argument unconvincing, calling the comparisons to Nazism “counterproductive.”

“Penn and other groups and associations the court permitted to intervene significantly raised the dispute’s temperature by impliedly and even expressly comparing the EEOC’s efforts to protect Jewish employees from antisemitism to the Holocaust and the Nazi’s compilation of ‘lists of Jews,’” the Barack Obama appointee wrote. “Such allegations are unfortunate and inappropriate.”

Ruling in favor of the commission in March, Pappert ordered the university to comply with the subpoena, though Penn would not be required to disclose which specific Jewish-related organization each employee belonged to.

“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,” Pappert wrote in his opinion.

Pappert granted a stay of his order, however, while Penn appealed to the Third Circuit.

That appeal is now rendered moot after the commission agreed to end its enforcement efforts.

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