Most professors at Barnard College received text messages on Monday notifying them that a federal agency was reviewing the college’s employment practices, according to copies of the messages reviewed by The Intercept.
The messages, sent to most Barnard professors’ personal cellphones, asked them to complete a voluntary survey about their employment.
“Please select all that apply,” said the second question in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or EEOC, survey.
“The federal government reaching out to our personal cellphones to identify who is Jewish is incredibly sinister.”
The choices followed: “I am Jewish”; “I am Israeli”; “I have shared Jewish/Israeli ancestry”; “I practice Judaism”; and “Other.”
Other questions asked respondents whether they had been subjected to antisemitism, as well as whether they were subject to “unwelcome discussions,” graffiti or signs depicting antisemitic messages or images, antisemitic or anti-Israeli protests, “unwelcome comments, jokes or discussions,” or “pressure to abandon, change or adopt a practice or religious belief.”
“The federal government reaching out to our personal cellphones to identify who is Jewish is incredibly sinister,” said Barnard associate professor Debbie Becher, who is Jewish and received the text. “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.”
EEOC Investigation
In an email to professors on Wednesday after The Intercept first reported on the text, the general counsel at Barnard, a women’s college affiliated with Columbia University, said the EEOC initiated an investigation against Barnard last summer into whether the school had discriminated against Jewish employees.
The EEOC was “legally entitled to obtain the contact information of Barnard’s employees” to send out the option to “voluntarily participate in their investigation,” Barnard vice president and general counsel Serena Longley wrote in the email obtained by The Intercept. Barnard complied with the request.
Going forward, the school said it would provide advance notice of any future requirements to provide staff information in connection with an investigation or litigation unless they were subject to a court order prohibiting them from doing so. Longley told staff they were not required to participate in the EEOC survey.
In a previous email on Monday evening, the general counsel at Barnard said the school had received multiple reports about the EEOC texts.
“Barnard was not given advance notice of this outreach,” Longley wrote. “If you choose to respond, please know that both federal law and Barnard policy strictly prohibit any form of retaliation.”
Neither the EEOC nor Barnard immediately responded to requests for comment.
The text messages are the latest episode stoking tensions on campus at Columbia, a flashpoint in the protests against the war on Gaza and the ensuing crackdown carried out by school administrators and the federal government.
Weaponizing EEOC
The Trump administration has already weaponized the EEOC, once tasked with enforcing laws against discrimination, as part of Donald Trump’s broad-based attacks on national programs to bolster “DEI,” or diversity, equity, and inclusion. These initiatives have been villainized in Trump’s rhetoric and attacked in executive orders that carried severe consequences for their targets.
The EEOC is intended to be an independent agency. It currently lacks a quorum, meaning that it is operating largely at the whims of Trump appointee, Republican Acting Chair Andrea Lucas.
Those attacks on DEI have leveraged the EEOC to retaliate against corporate law firms that have drawn Trump’s ire. It was reported on Tuesday that a new federal task force at the Department of Veterans Affairs is asking employees to report “anti-Christian bias” to the government.
Professors who received the survey link told The Intercept they’re concerned that the EEOC is now being used to attack faculty on college campuses that have been the site of yearslong protests against Israel’s war on Gaza.
At first, some people thought the text message was spam, said Becher, the Barnard professor.
“The email that we received seems to confirm for us that Barnard thinks it is the EEOC, and not something else,” Becher said.
“The government is weaponizing the EEOC in service of their own hatred and service of their own desire to destroy higher education,” Becher said. “And in their desire to silence speech about — as they have been — their desire to silence any speech that might criticize Israel as part of that larger campaign as well.”
No Assurances
One professor, who asked for anonymity for fear of retaliation, said several students also received the message Another professor who is not currently employed at Barnard also received the text, the Barnard professor said.
The Barnard professor said they were alarmed by news of the inquiry and that the government had access to their personal cellphone numbers and names. They said they were not aware of any professors at Columbia outside of Barnard receiving the EEOC text.
The professor said they were concerned that the survey opened a new pathway for people to make anonymous complaints to the government about faculty supporting pro-Palestine students. Barnard launched an anonymous “Ethics Reporting Hotline” last week.
The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress have blamed DEI for myriad government problems from plane crashes to the killing of U.S. soldiers abroad. The administration has used its stated efforts to dismantle “wokeness” and DEI to undo the legacy of the civil rights movement — part of its broader play to supporters in the Christian far-right. Trump has made eradicating anti-Christian bias — largely a myth — a cornerstone of his platform, critical to maintaining his relationship with his mass of right-wing evangelical supporters.
The survey sent to Barnard professors noted that the questions were part of an EEOC inquiry into the school. It also noted that the fact that EEOC was reviewing Barnard’s employment practices “does not mean there has been a violation of the law.”
Barnard has been complicit and worked with the administration on its false campaign against antisemitism for over a year, Becher said.
“This administration of white nationalists has never been interested in antisemitism, an administration that is full of hate,” Becher said. “It’s farcical to say that what this is actually doing is protecting us from antisemitism.”
Barnard President Laura Ann Rosenbury has also resisted faculty requests that the administration confirm that they won’t give out information to the government without a court order, Becher said.
“It’s farcical to say that what this is actually doing is protecting us from antisemitism.”
“They are not responding to our requests even for information about whether they’ve met with them in the middle of this time when we know that they have been called to a congressional briefing,” she said. “They’re providing us with absolutely no assurances that they are protecting us and even just protecting information about us that is private.”
It’s important for the government to have the power to investigate entities for discriminatory practices, Becher said, but that’s not what they’re doing in this case. Most of the efforts to use civil rights to silence people at universities has come under Title VI provisions that protect against discrimination by national origin.
“This is using Title VII, which is anti-discrimination in employment,” Becher said. “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.”
Update: April 23, 2025, 1:20 p.m. ET
This story has been updated to include more information about the EEOC survey text messages and background on the Trump administration’s weaponization of the agency and attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
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