Thursday, April 24, 2025
Elder of ZiyonThe personal cellphones of dozens of current and former Barnard College employees pinged Monday evening with a text message that looked, at first, like a scam.The text said it was from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, part of a review of the employment practices of Barnard. A link led to a survey that asked respondents if they were Jewish or Israeli, and if they had been subjected to harassment.After faculty members asked Barnard administrators about the text, the college confirmed to them on Wednesday that the messages were authentic — part of a federal investigation into discrimination against Jewish employees that started last summer.Serena Longley, Barnard’s general counsel, acknowledged in an email to the faculty members that Barnard had provided the commission with the personal contact information of staff members to give them the opportunity to participate. “Participation in the survey is voluntary,” she wrote.The texts, which faculty members said appeared to have gone to nearly all Barnard staff members, appear to be part of an aggressive new tactic by the Trump administration to collect reports of alleged antisemitism at Barnard, a women’s college affiliated with Columbia University that has come under heavy criticism for pro-Palestinian demonstrations on its campus.
The EEOC has plenty of valid reasons to proactively reach out to employees to determine if there is antisemitic or anti-Israeli harassment at Barnard.
Its methods leave much to be desired.
The EEOC is tasked to identify and stop discrimination in workplaces under Chapter VII of the Civil Rights Act. It can open an investigation based on public reports, and there are certainly enough of them at Barnard. These include a January protest that disrupted the “History of Modern Israel” class taught by Israeli professor Avi Shilon, and the February 2024 lawsuit against Columbia and Barnard, alleging that Jewish and Israeli students faced physical assaults, spitting, threats, and relentless intimidation due to pro-Palestinian activism which may have extended to faculty and created a hostile work environment for Jewish and Israeli employees.
In fact, the EEOC investigation of Barnard didn't start under the Trump administration but it was opened last summer.
So the investigation itself is appropriate and the EEOC had opened similar ones in the past.
Employers are required under federal law (via the EEO-1 report) to collect and report racial and ethnic data, as well as gender, but not religion or national origin. The only way that the EEOC can investigate whether there is a pattern of antisemitic/anti-Israel harassment is to proactively seek information from the employees themselves.
The problem is how creepy the EEOC methods were.
It should not have sent unsolicited texts to all employees without telling the university in advance and coordinating the investigation with the university or with any Jewish employee groups on campus. It could have set up and publicized a webpage to encourage employees to report incidents voluntarily, and if necessary anonymously.
The EEOC's methods could, and did, make some Jewish employees even more uncomfortable. That is not what the government should be doing.
As with everything else under this administration, there seems to be little thought about repercussions and unintended consequences. The impression being given is that antisemitism is an excuse to attack elite, anti-Trump institutions even when the specific actions do not violate any laws. Over the long run, this risks increasing antisemitism, not reducing it.
And Jews shouldn't be pawns for anyone's political goals, right or left.
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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