04.02.26

Naming Jews' names

Judge Gerald J. Pappert

Tuesday, a federal judge upheld the constitutionality of a demand by the federal Equal Educational Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that the University of Pennsylvania hand over personal information about its Jewish faculty and staff. The justification is that it needs this information to investigate antisemitism at Penn.

Penn’s Jews are not the first to be targeted by the Trump administration’s fake war on antisemitism—which is actually a war on criticism of Israel, including by Jews. Columbia University, for instance, was extorted for $400 million in withheld funds in 2023; the university immediately bent the knee, banned Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace, dismantled its Middle Eastern Studies program, forced out distinguished professors who defended student protesters, and sicced the NYPD on the Gaza solidarity encampments, many of whose occupants were Jewish.

Nor did the crusade against Penn start with this salvo. In 2025 Trump forced the university to ban transgender athletes from women’s sports in exchange for the release of $175 million the administration had illegally withheld.

But Penn is the first university required to name names. It is appealing the district court ruling, but there’s little guarantee SCOTUS will overturn it.

The university and its amici noted the absurdity and danger of “protecting” Jews by disclosing their private information to the government. Not unreasonably, they compared the move to something the Nazis would have done.

In his ruling Judge Gerald Pappert — a whiter, more Christian looking man could hardly be found — accused the group of “rais[ing] the debate’s temperature” with these “allegations,” which he called “unfortunate and inappropriate.” Then he articulated all the ways that such fears are ridiculous. Why would anyone mistrust Trump administration with people’s confidential information? he suggested. (Okay, so DOGE gave IRS data to Homeland Security. A glitch). And why should they fear being targeted by this administration on the basis of their minority status?

The judge dismissed the appellants’ concern that the information might “fall into the wrong hands,” given the numerous administration officials with white supremacist views. “These are unserious political arguments,” scoffed Pappert, “not serious legal ones.”

The ruling reads like a fancily worded X post accusing the “woke” of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Relax, says the judge (who, btw, is an Obama appointee). The government’s subpoena is “narrowly focused”—much better than asking for the names and phone numbers of all of Penn’s faculty. He does not address why the EEOC demands that Penn divulge anybody’s names without their consent if they had not committed some infraction against federal law.

Penn had offered two reasonable ways to help the EEOC in its investigation, neither of which would violate anyone’s privacy or First Amendment rights. The university could inform employees of the investigation and provide contact information for the EEOC. Or the EEOC could set up a hotline through which employees could contact it.

Pappert rejected both as “inadequate.” Asking employees to contact the government through their employer, he said, risks “creating confusion, [and] fear.” Also, people who’ve experienced antisemitic harassment “will be less likely to approach the EEOC if they are told to do so by their employer.”

What’s confusing about “There’s an investigation. Here’s where you can contact the EEOC”? How is Penn “telling” its employees to do anything at all? The whole point is to prevent coercion.

And what does “narrowly focused” mean?

Here’s a thought experiment: Imagine the administration asking for a list of white Christians to investigate alleged bias against them? Their plight, after all, is the current civil rights agencies’ near-exclusive concern.

You cannot imagine it, because white Christians are assumed impervious to listing. They are unidentifiable, presumed to have no race, no ethnicity. They are the default, merely people — what used to be called, before feminism and anti-colonial, anti-racist movements, Mankind.

Whereas Jews, Black and brown people, Muslims, non-English speakers, etc. are the Other, the discernible objects of a narrow focus.

In September, in Noem v Perdomo, the Supreme Court upheld a lower-court ruling allowing immigration agents to conduct “roving patrols,” accosting and detaining anyone who is brown, speaks Spanish, and works in certain low-paying jobs. In the crucial work of mass deportation racial profiling is permissible, the majority said.

In Penn’s case, while the government asks Penn to identify Jews by their affiliation with Jewish-related organizations, it has stepped back from asking for affiliation with a specific organization. This is an inexact method. Jewish organizations don’t exclude non-Jews and non-Jews also attend Jewish events, just as white people might be interested in Black film.

So the question looms: How is the university to determine who is Jewish? Even Jews don’t agree. The university does not keep data based on students’ or faculty members’ religious affiliations, it says.

Examining penises for circumcision worked pretty well for the Nazis in the 1930s and ‘40s. But U.S. hospitals routinely circumcise baby boys. So nix that. Should the dean use AI to scan its payroll for “Jewish” names? Might it deputize teams to round up people with “Jewish” noses, voices, or feet, all historically determined by antisemites to be identifying characteristics?

The EEOC’s job is to rout out bigotry and bias in education. This subpoena does precisely the opposite. It imposes an identity on people either who don’t identify themselves that way or who don’t want the government surveilling them because of their identities — acts of bigotry and bias. By invading the privacy of a minority — in the guise of protecting it from persecution — it protects the privacy of the majority. This makes sense for an administration that believes the worst discrimination is against white, straight, cisgender men.

If Penn does not refuse to turn over this information, no Jew and no member of any minority is safe. And if the government is allowed to seize such information without consent, then everyone is in danger — even white, straight, cisgender men.