Dive Transient:
- School members of Columbia College and Columbia-affiliated Barnard School acquired textual content messages from the U.S. Equal Employment Alternative Fee asking them to finish a survey inquiring about whether or not they’re Jewish or Israeli, a number of information shops reported April 23.
- In line with a screenshot of a message posted by CNN, EEOC stated responses to the survey can be stored confidential “to the extent allowed by regulation.” The screenshot stated EEOC was conducting an inquiry into Barnard School and that, ought to the company discover that the faculty violated legal guidelines enforced by EEOC, among the data of respondents could also be disclosed.
- In an e mail to HR Dive, EEOC declined to substantiate that it had despatched the messages. Columbia, in a separate e mail, declined to substantiate that workers had acquired messages from EEOC.
Dive Perception:
Federal officers have scrutinized Columbia following a collection of on-campus protests in 2024. In August of that yr, Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., and former chairwoman of the Home Committee on Training and the Workforce, issued a number of subpoenas to Columbia leaders as a part of an investigation into antisemitism on the college and whether or not the protests had created a hostile surroundings in violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Final month, EEOC Performing Chair Andrea Lucas issued a press release by which she pledged to carry universities and schools accountable for office antisemitism. Lucas’ assertion didn’t identify any particular establishments, but it surely did cite “disruptive and violent protests in violation of campus insurance policies” for example of extreme or pervasive antisemitic conduct that would violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
“Beneath the guise of selling free speech, many universities have really develop into a haven for antisemitic conduct, usually in violation of the colleges’ personal time, place, and method insurance policies, in addition to civil rights regulation,” Lucas stated within the March 5 assertion.
EEOC didn’t verify whether or not messages despatched to Columbia and Barnard school had been a part of an ongoing investigation into both establishment. “Per federal regulation, we can not touch upon investigations, nor can we verify or deny the existence of an investigation,” the company stated.
Equally, Columbia declined to touch upon a pending investigation, however a college official stated Columbia had informed employees that it gave “affected workers discover that the College was required to offer sure data in compliance with a subpoena. The College didn’t present the data voluntarily.”
Columbia didn’t reply to a request for touch upon whether or not it had suggested employees not to reply to EEOC’s messages.
Information of the inquiry drew criticism from one in every of EEOC’s administrative judges, Karen Ortiz, who despatched an all-staff e mail directed to EEOC Performing Chair Andrea Lucas.
Ortiz wrote that Lucas ought to contemplate resigning; in an interview with HR Dive, she stated the e-mail was in response to information of the textual content messages and different latest company actions, together with its resolution to abandon gender-identity discrimination litigation and halting some claims processing. She stated the survey arguably was not inside Lucas’ authority to ship and may very well be understood as an try and intimidate Columbia and Barnard.
“It’s a whole overreach,” Ortiz stated of the survey.