Mastodawn

"Trump administration texted college professors' personal phones to ask if they're Jewish."
https://theintercept.com/2025/04/23/trump-eeoc-barnard-columbia-texts-jewish/

As all academics know, you can't ask this question in a job interview.
https://www.eeoc.gov/pre-employment-inquiries-and-religious-affiliation-or-beliefs

But I guess it's OK when it's not a job interview, when it's the govt asking, and the govt includes a high-ranking official who gives #Nazi salutes.

This happened at #BarnardCollege. Probably no accident that Barnard is affiliated with #Columbia. Trump officials said they had a right to the personal contact info, and the school handed it over.

#Antisemitism #Trump #USPol #USPolitics #WTF
@academicchatter

Trump Administration Texted College Professors’ Personal Phones to Ask If They’re Jewish

“Barnard was not given advance notice of this outreach,” the college’s general counsel wrote in an email to faculty.

The Intercept

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petersuber Jan 14

Update. The Trump admin is demanding a list of Jewish faculty, staff, and students at #UPenn.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/13/upenn-trump-jews-list

Trump's #EEOC asked for the list last July. Penn refused, and the EEOC sued the university in November. What's new is that several groups just filed a motion in federal court to intervene in the lawsuit on the side of the university -- the American Association of University Professors (#AAUP, national and UPenn chapters), the American Academy of Jewish Research, the UPenn Jewish Law Students Association, the UPenn Association of Senior and Emeritus Faculty.

From #StevenWeitzman, UPenn prof of religious studies and past member of its antisemitism taskforce: “Part of what sets off alarm bells for people like me is a history of people using Jewish lists against Jews. The Nazi campaign against Jews depended on institutions like universities handing over information about their Jewish members to the authorities.”

#Academia #AcademicMastodon #Antisemitism #Trump #Universities #USPol #USPolitics

UPenn faculty condemn Trump administration’s demand for ‘lists of Jews’

Groups say EEOC demand for names and personal details echoes dark history and threatens safety and civil rights

The Guardian

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petersuber Jan 21

Update. Yesterday #UPenn filed a 163-page brief in federal court condemning the #Trump admin demand for a list of #Jews at the institution as “extraordinary and unconstitutional".
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/20/us/university-of-pennsylvania-trump-jewish-staff.html

"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 government’s demand implicates Penn’s substantial interest in protecting its employees’ privacy, safety and First Amendment rights."

#Academia #AcademicMastodon #Antisemitism #Universities #USLaw #USPol #USPolitics

University of Pennsylvania Rebukes Trump Administration for Demanding Information About Jewish Staff

The federal government has sued the University of Pennsylvania for information on its Jewish employees. The university said the request recalls a “frightening” history.

The New York Times

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Susan Vanderplas Jan 21

@petersuber Why on earth would any institution maintain any information on employees ancestry or religious identity? WTF. If your institution does this, probably a good idea to delete those records and purge them from backups *now*. But why oh why would they need it in the first place?!?

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erinaceus Jan 14

@petersuber Creating lists of jews. What could possibly go wrong?

I'm from Germany. We spent half of our history lessons at school learning about how this went wrong. We also learned how it went wrong to have a special police force that goes around and abducts people. And we learned how annexing or attacking our neighbours because either“they are basically German” or because “we really need their land” went wrong.

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Lisa Schiff Apr 23, 2025

@petersuber @academicchatter Thank you for breaking this down, Peter. Incredibly scary!

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contrasocial Apr 23, 2025

@petersuber @academicchatter

So many cowards.

I understand when someone comes and puts a gun to your loved ones head or something and you cave to their demands, but these fucking college admins, department heads, ceos etc. are legally within their rights to tell the Trump admin to fuck off on so much of this stuff, yet they fold instantly at the slightest suggestion that there might be a breeze.

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DoNotPunchDown Apr 23, 2025

@petersuber @academicchatter

WTAF!?

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HollsHulsey Apr 23, 2025

@petersuber @academicchatter

Oh hell no! What in the Nazi?

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Jay Baltz Apr 24, 2025

@petersuber @academicchatter What could possibly go wrong with this? It’s not like anyone has ever made a list of Jews before and did anything bad.

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Bill Apr 24, 2025

@petersuber @academicchatter

What the actual fuck?

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Elizabeth Eiler Apr 24, 2025

@petersuber @academicchatter This is bone-chillingly terrifying. How quickly they went from Nazi salutes, to government purges, mass deportations, suspension of due process, and now lists of Jews. We’re in Hell.

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Frank Heijkamp Apr 24, 2025

@petersuber @academicchatter Back in the day Nazi Germany was very happy with the fact that the city of Amsterdam had a well organized registration office. The Nazis asked the office to produce a list of all the Jewish people living in Amsterdam and they received the list a couple of days later. The rest is history, those Jewish people in Amsterdam became history.

The lessons learned? Do not comply in advance, resist the oppressor and protect the vulnerable people in society.

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