The Trump administration has released $175 million in previously frozen federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania after the university agreed to ban transgender athletes from women’s teams and remove Lia Thomas’ records, CNN reported on Wednesday.
Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon said: “We told them that institutions that violate federal civil rights law could lose their federal funding… So UPenn came back to the table… We said, ‘You have to completely rewrite your institutional policy.’ They signed on the dotted line.”
The school agreed to adopt biology-based definitions for “male” and “female” under Title IX and to apologise to female athletes who lost to Lia Thomas in 2021–22.
UPenn President J. Larry Jameson stated: “Penn has always followed — and continues to follow — Title IX and NCAA policy regarding transgender athletes.” “We recognise this and will apologise to those who experienced a competitive disadvantage.”
Thomas’ name has been removed from school records, with a note stating her records were achieved under the rules then in effect.
This comes after Trump’s executive order in February titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports”, declaring: “With this executive order, the war on women’s sports is over.”
The administration claims UPenn violated Title IX by permitting transgender women to compete in women’s sports and access women-only spaces.
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Thomas, the first transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I title in 2022, has become a symbol in the ongoing debate over transgender inclusion in sports. While critics say trans athletes have an unfair advantage, a 2017 Sports Medicine review found “no direct or consistent research” supporting this.
Thomas, a former male swimmer at UPenn, told Sports Illustrated: “I’m not a man. I’m a woman, so I belong on the women’s team. Trans people deserve that same respect every other athlete gets.”
Despite expressing a desire to continue swimming, Thomas has been barred from international competition, including the 2024 Olympics, under World Aquatics rules.
