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 Columbia University and the affiliated 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 first reported the texts to Barnard staff on Wednesday.

Barnard’s general counsel, Serena Longley, reportedly told faculty that the messages were authentic, according to The New York Times, and that they are related to an EEOC investigation that began last summer into alleged antisemitic harassment of Barnard faculty. Longley said responding was optional.

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Barnard did not notify staff that their contact information had been shared with the government before the texts were sent, but Columbia did, explaining in the week prior that they were required to provide it in response to a subpeona, the Columbia Daily Spectator reported.

Barnard did not immediately respond to the Forward’s inquiries. An EEOC communications director responded to say, “Per federal law, we cannot comment on investigations, nor can we confirm or deny the existence of an investigation.”

The survey appears to be part of the Trump administration’s measures to combat antisemitism at Barnard, which is affiliated with Columbia University, 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. Columbia has lost millions of dollars in government support in recent weeks and has pledged to work with the Trump administration to get it restored.

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.

“The federal government reaching out to our personal cellphones to identify who is Jewish is incredibly sinister,” said Barnard associate professor Debbie Becher to The Intercept.

“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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