Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.
Staff members at Columbia University and Barnard College in New York City said they were taken aback earlier this week after receiving text messages on their personal devices linking to a survey which asked, in part, if they were Jewish or Israeli.
The survey on Monday came from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and outlined that it was part of a federal investigation into workplace practices at the schools.
The second question on the survey asks respondents to check boxes for all that apply, inquiring if they are Jewish, Israeli, have Jewish/Israeli ancestry or practice Judaism.
Debbie Becher, an associate sociology professor at Barnard, said she was “shocked” to receive the text. “At first, I thought it was spam,” Becher, who is Jewish, told CNN. “I was alarmed that the government would contact me in this way about such a serious matter.”
In a text message sent to one Barnard College staff member seen by CNN, the employee’s name appears at the top of the message, which encouraged recipients to contact an email address from the EEOC if they want to confirm the text’s authenticity, the message shows.
Columbia had sent out an email to staff and faculty on April 15 stating it had received a subpoena from the EEOC “in connection with an investigation into alleged harassment of Jewish employees at the University from October 7, 2023, to the present.”
In 2016, Michael Wilner wrote in The Jerusalem Post:
Over the course of a months-long investigation of that relationship by The Jerusalem Post – resourcing court documents, media archives and original interviews with campaign aides, close personal confidantes, past lawyers, business partners and employees – both supporters and detractors of the Republican nominee agreed on one critical revelation: Trump seems to have something of an affirmative prejudice toward Jews.
They believe he considers Jews a group of rich, smart, successful and generally powerful deal makers – all traits which Trump himself aspires to, and has sought to emulate, while simultaneously touching on tropes described by historians of the topic as classically antisemitic.
“In some ways, Donald Trump and his relationship with the Jews is the latest chapter in a very long history of ambivalence and dichotomous relations,” Jonathan Sarna, author of American Judaism: A History, said in an interview. “The line between philosemitism and antisemitism is often a difficult one – the line is thin. It’s not bright red. Often you can find within the same person both tendencies, and Trump is a study in that.”