Some Barnard employees were dismayed by a survey question asking if they’re Jewish. Photo by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for HBO

By Louis Keene April 23, 2025

The federal government debuted a new tactic this week in its fight against antisemitism: texting university employees to ask if they’re Jewish.

Staffers at Barnard College received text messages Monday from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, an agency the White House is deploying in anti-DEI efforts, linking to a survey that asked whether they were Jewish or Israeli and whether they had been subject to harassment, The Intercept reported Wednesday.

Barnard’s general counsel reportedly told faculty that the messages were authentic but that they related to an EEOC investigation that began last summer into alleged antisemitic harassment of Barnard faculty. She said responding was optional.

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The EEOC and Barnard did not immediately respond to the Forward‘s inquiries.

The survey appears to be part of the Trump administration’s measures to combat antisemitism at Barnard, a sister institution of Columbia University, which has been one of the primary targets of the administration’s efforts to reform college campuses. And it comes as Columbia students reportedly prepared to set up a new tent encampment to protest the Israel-Hamas war.

According to the Intercept, one of the survey questions read: “While working at Barnard College, were you subjected to any of the following because you practice Judaism, have Jewish ancestry, are Israeli, and/or are associated with an individual(s) who is Jewish and/or Israeli?”

The options respondents could then choose from included unwelcome discussions or jokes, antisemitic graffiti or signs, antisemitic or anti-Israeli protests, or “pressure to abandon, change or adopt a practice or religious belief.”

If the survey’s intent was to help combat antisemitism, some faculty said it had the opposite effect.

“We’ve seen this movie before, and it ends with yellow stars,” Nara Milanich, a Barnard history professor, told The New York Times.

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