On April 21, the US Equal Opportunity Commission sent a survey to current and former faculty members of Columbia University and Barnard College, asking a series of questions related to being Jewish or Israeli.
The faculty survey was sent via text message. Reportedly, it was received by some Barnard faculty members and not all. The survey also asked participants about hiring practices, according to The Intercept.
The survey contained the following answer options: “I am Jewish”; “I am Israeli”; “I have shared Jewish/Israeli ancestry”; “I practice Judaism”; and “Other.”
Survey participants were then asked if they faced any discrimination – including verbal comments and insults – in light of being Jewish or Israeli.
Some professors claim the message and survey are fascist and an abuse of Title VII. Debbie Becher, a professor at Barnard, told The Intercept:
“The federal government reaching out to our personal cellphones to identify who is Jewish is incredibly sinister. They are clearly targeting what most of the United States, I hope and I think, defines as freedom of speech, but only in the case of anti-Israeli speech,” Becher said.
The professor continued:
“This is using Title VII, which is anti-discrimination in employment. They are using Title VII procedures that a non-fascist, non-weaponized government we want to have access to. That is, the power to proactively investigate discriminatory employers. But they’re using it to attack a targeted civil society institution.”
Another Barnard professor, Nara Milanich, said she was reminded of Italy under “Duce” Benito Mussolini, when local governments put together a list of Jewish people. This claim was made even though the initiative, along with the White House’s crackdown on disruptive campus protests, is concerned with combatting anti-semitism arising over the Israel-Hamas war protests. Moreover, the survey is not mandatory according to Barnard Vice President and General Counsel Serena Longley.
“We’ve seen this movie before, and it ends with yellow stars,” Milanich told the New York Times.
Columbia University told its faculty it would be sending personal information to the federal government ahead of the survey. However, Barnard, an affiliate of Columbia, did not make its faculty aware of the survey, according to The Columbia Spectator.
