The Trump administration has abandoned its quest to force the University of Pennsylvania to turn over names of Jewish people on campus, according to a court filing on Thursday.

The retreat by the administration does not resolve the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s long-running inquiry into concerns about antisemitism at Penn. But the government’s decision to drop the subpoena appears to spell the end, at least in Penn’s case, of a politically volatile and legally fraught tactic.

The government did not explain the decision in the court filing, and a spokesman for the E.E.O.C. declined to comment.

The move, however, represents a rare pullback by the Trump administration, which has sought to use investigations and funding cuts as tools of leverage against elite universities.

The investigation into Penn began in December 2023, when Andrea Lucas — an E.E.O.C. commissioner appointed by President Trump during his first administration — filed a civil rights charge against the university, citing a “pattern or practice of harassment against Jewish faculty, staff and other employees,” particularly in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas.

But the investigation gathered force only once Mr. Trump returned to the White House. The E.E.O.C. quickly began pressing Penn to surrender records about antisemitism complaints and a list of “all clubs, groups, organizations and recreation groups” that were “related to the Jewish religion, faith, ancestry/national origin.”