The Department of Education under President Trump has said that the University of Pennsylvania violated Title IX by allowing transgender athletes to compete with women.
The University of Pennsylvania became a lightning rod for controversy in 2022 when it allowed swimmer Lia Thomas, a man living as a woman, to compete on the women’s swim team and earn a Division 1 title in the 500-yard freestyle. On Wednesday, the Department of Education said it notified UPenn President J. Larry Jameson noted that the school has 10 days to bar transgender athletes from women’s programs and issue letters of apology to female athletes who were subjected to “sex discrimination.” Per The Hill:
The Education Department did not mention any specific instances of trans athletes at Penn but said the school, as part of the agreement, must erase transgender female students’ records, awards “or similar recognition for Division I swimming competitions,” a clause that applies solely to Lia Thomas, a former University of Pennsylvania swimmer who competed on the school’s women’s team for one season in 2022, the year she graduated.
Asked whether the department had found Penn to have violated Title IX because it allowed Thomas to swim on the school’s women’s team that year, an Education Department spokesperson pointed to a February news release that announced Title IX investigations into Penn, San José State University and the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association. That announcement refers to Thomas by name.
It remains unknown whether UPenn has allowed other transgender athletes besides Lia Thomas to compete in women’s sports. The university never had a transgender policy of its own and said it was only following NCAA guidelines. Since Trump assumed office and issued his executive order on women’s sports, the NCAA has changed its policy.
“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,” said Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the Department of Education.
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