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The university plans to “apologize to those who experienced a competitive disadvantage or experienced anxiety because of the policies in effect at the time.”
Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Kyle Mazza/Anadolu/Getty Images | Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire/Getty Images
The University of Pennsylvania will concede to the Trump administration’s demands that the university “restore” swimming awards—and send apology notes—to female competitors who lost to a trans athlete, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights announced Tuesday.
The department previously found that Penn violated Title IX for allowing a trans woman to compete on a women’s sports team—presumably referring to Lia Thomas, who rose to national attention while competing on Penn’s women’s swim team three years ago.
To end the investigation, the administration demanded in part that Penn apologize to cisgender women whose swimming awards and honors were “misappropriated” to trans women athletes. Multiple Title IX advocates lambasted the department’s demands, arguing the agency was misusing the landmark gender-equity law to punish trans students and their institutions.
Penn is one of multiple higher education institutions and K–12 schools that the administration has targeted for allowing trans women to play on women’s sports teams, in accordance with NCAA policy at the time. But it appears to be the first institution of higher education to reach a resolution agreement over the issue since Trump took office.
“Penn remains committed to fostering a community that is welcoming, inclusive, and open to all students, faculty, and staff,” Penn president J. Larry Jameson said in a statement Tuesday. “I share this commitment, just as I remain dedicated to preserving and advancing the University’s vital and enduring mission. We have now brought to a close an investigation that, if unresolved, could have had significant and lasting implications for the University of Pennsylvania.”
Separate from the department’s investigation, the White House paused $175 million in funding to the university because Penn “infamously permitted a male to compete on its women’s swimming team,” an official said in March. It’s not clear if the funding will be restored or when.
Jameson stressed in the statement that the university was in compliance with Title IX and all NCAA guidelines at the time that Thomas swam for Penn’s women’s team from 2021 to 2022. But, he said, “we acknowledge that some student-athletes were disadvantaged by these rules. We recognize this and will apologize to those who experienced a competitive disadvantage or experienced anxiety because of the policies in effect at the time.”
Title IX advocates have emphasized that trans athletes are not, in fact, explicitly forbidden from playing on women’s sports teams under the current Title IX regulations, which were finalized under the previous Trump administration and are the same ones that were in effect when Thomas was competing.
In addition to stripping Thomas’s awards, Penn agreed to ED’s demands to make a public statement that people assigned male at birth are not allowed in Penn’s women’s athletic programs or its bathrooms and locker rooms, according to the department’s news release. The institution must also promise to adopt “biology-based definitions for the words ‘male’ and ‘female’ pursuant to Title IX” and Trump’s February executive order banning trans athletes from playing on the team that aligns with their gender.
That statement also went up Tuesday. In it, the university promised to follow Trump’s trans athlete ban, as well as the executive order he signed that withdraws federal recognition of transgender people, with regard to women’s athletics.
In the department’s announcement, Paula Scanlan, one of Thomas’s former teammates who has since led the crusade against trans women athletes, said she was “deeply grateful to the Trump Administration for refusing to back down on protecting women and girls and restoring our rightful accolades. I am also pleased that my alma mater has finally agreed to take not only the lawful path, but the honorable one."
Shiwali Patel, senior director of safe and inclusive schools at the National Women’s Law Center, criticized the agreement in a statement Tuesday as a “devastating and shameful outcome.” She blamed Penn’s “utter failure” as well as the department’s “continued manipulation of Title IX.”
“The Trump administration’s attacks on civil rights protections, including Title IX, and obsession with undermining bodily autonomy is the real harm to women and girls, unlike transgender athletes who want to compete in sports alongside their peers and pose no threat to women’s sports, contrary to Trump’s lies,” Patel said in the statement. “In fact, their inclusion benefits all women and girls. We will continue to support Lia Thomas and her peers and their right to compete.”
