AAUP Victory over Trump’s List of Jews

AAUP-Penn is thrilled to announce that the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has granted our request to vacate the District Court ruling ordering Penn to comply with the Trump administration’s unconstitutional subpoena to create a list of Jews at Penn.

After the Penn administration refused to comply with an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) order requesting identities and personal information of university employees affiliated with Jewish groups, the EEOC sued the University. AAUP-Penn, along with the national AAUP, the American Academy of Jewish research, and other groups intervened on the side of the University to ensure that the rights of Penn community members would be protected. On March 31, the District Court ruled in favor of the EEOC, and both Penn and the intervenors appealed. Over the summer, Penn settled with the EEOC when the EEOC agreed not to enforce the subpoena. However, AAUP did not close our appeal: we kept fighting to ensure that the existing ruling could not be used to coerce Penn or other universities to disclose lists of Jews or any other group.

We have now succeeded in vacating that District Court decision, leaving the EEOC with no list of Jews at Penn, and no precedent that it could use to compel similar lists in the future.

We are so grateful to AAUP-Penn members Amanda Shanor, Serena Mayeri, Steve Weitzman, and Lorena Grundy for their tireless work to win this victory, and also to the ACLU of Pennsylvania and Democracy Defenders for representing us.

When we fight, we win!