Members of Barnard College and Columbia University faculty and staff received surveys from the EEOC asking them if they are Jewish or Israeli as part of the civil rights agency’s probe into alleged campus antisemitism.
The voluntary surveys sent April 21 through text messages asked staff of the Manhattan-based schools if they faced discrimination at work based on their Jewish or Israeli identity, according to a copy of the survey sent to Barnard employees that was viewed by Bloomberg Law.
Combating antisemitism on college campuses is part of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Acting Chair Andrea Lucas’s priorities, in line with a broader push from the Trump administration. The White House escalated tensions with elite universities recently by threatening to halt funding in part based on claims the schools aren’t doing enough to fight antisemitism on campuses after protests over the Israel-Hamas war.
The surveys sent to Barnard professors and staff were first reported by The Intercept.
In response to an inquiry about the survey, Barnard’s media spokesperson forwarded an email general counsel and vice president Serena Longley sent to campus employees Wednesday. Longley wrote that the EEOC was able to obtain Barnard employees’ contact information because Lucas initiated a self-directed commissioner’s charge targeting the school for investigation last summer.
A Columbia University official said in a statement the school did not provide employee contact information voluntarily and “gave affected employees notice that the University was required to provide certain information in compliance with a subpoena.”
EEOC legal action is usually taken in response to charges filed by individual employees. All workers alleging workplace discrimination must file a charge to the EEOC or related state agency before a lawsuit can be filed.
However, some of the EEOC’s probes are carried out through commissioner charges, a process that allows any of the panel’s members to initiate an investigation based on Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and other statutes the agency enforces.
An EEOC spokesperson declined to comment on the text messages.
EEOC Surveys
The agency appears to have tried to send its surveys to most Barnard employees, including undergraduate faculty and student workers, said Debbie Becher, an associate professor of sociology at Barnard.
The scope of survey recipients at Columbia is less clear.
But affiliates who work at Columbia University’s Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies were among those who received the survey, said Rebecca Kobrin, an associate professor of American Jewish history at Columbia, who received the message herself.
One survey question asked Barnard staff to select all that apply from the following choices: “I am Jewish,” “I am Israeli,” “I have shared Jewish/Israeli ancestry,” “I practice Judaism,” and “Other.”
It also asked staff to select if they experienced a range of discriminatory behavior because “you practice Judaism, have Jewish ancestry, are Israeli, and/or are associated with an individual(s) who is Jewish and/or Israeli.”
Survey takers were asked to select if they were subjected to “Anti-Semitic or anti-Israeli protests, gatherings, or demonstrations” that made them “feel threatened, harassed, or were otherwise disruptive” to their working environment.
In a March 5 statement, Lucas said she would hold accountable universities and and colleges that have created a hostile work environment for their Jewish employees following the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war.
“Anti-Zionism is not coextensive with antisemitism, despite the effort of this administration to say this is,” said Chai Feldblum, a former Democratic EEOC commissioner.
“Therefore, it cannot be coextensive as a matter of law,"she said.
Once a commissioner charge is filed, it follows a similar path to any other charge. If a violation is found, the agency can seek conciliation or choose to file litigation.
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