The Trump Administration said Monday that the University of Pennsylvania violated laws guaranteeing women equal opportunities in athletics by letting a transgender swimmer compete on the Penn women’s team.
As reported by The Associated Press, the administration’s statement does not name Lia Thomas, the transgender swimmer who last competed for the Ivy League school in 2022, a year in which Thomas won an NCAA Division I championship.
The U.S. Department of Education said Penn violated Title IX by “denying women equal opportunities by permitting males to compete in women’s intercollegiate athletics and to occupy women-only intimate facilities.”
Penn has maintained that it always followed NCAA and Ivy League policies regarding student participation on athletic teams, both when Thomas swam and currently, The AP's Marc Levy reported.
In 2022, the NCAA used a sport-by-sport approach to allowing transgender athletes to participate, deferring to an individual sport’s national governing organization, international federation or prior established International Olympic Committee criteria.
The NCAA changed its policy the day after Trump signed an executive order Feb. 5 that was intended to ban transgender athletes from competing in girls' and women’s sports. A policy that only allows athletes assigned female at birth to participate in women’s sports replaced the NCAA's previous position on the matter.
“Little girls who look up to Riley Gaines and Paula Scanlan can find hope in today’s action — the Trump Administration will not allow male athletes to invade female private spaces or compete in female categories,” said acting assistant secretary for civil rights Craig Trainor in the Department of Education's official statement. “UPenn has a choice to make: do the right thing for its female students and come into full compliance with Title IX immediately or continue to advance an extremist political project that violates federal antidiscrimination law and puts UPenn’s federal funding at risk.”
According to the statement, ED’s proposed Resolution Agreement requires UPenn to take the following actions:
(i) Issue a statement to the University community stating that the University will comply with Title IX in all of its athletic programs;
(ii) Restore to all female athletes all individual athletic records, titles, honors, awards or similar recognition for Division I swimming competitions misappropriated by male athletes competing in female categories; and
(iii) Send a letter to each female athlete whose individual recognition is restored expressing an apology on behalf of the University for allowing her educational experience in athletics to be marred by sex discrimination.
"The department said Penn has 10 days to voluntarily resolve the violations or risk prosecution," Levy wrote, adding that the Trump Administration in March announced it had suspended approximately $175 million in federal funding for Penn over its decision to let Thomas compete. The school’s federal money came from the Defense Department and the Department of Health and Human Services.
