Trump administration finds University of Pennsylvania violated Title IX with trans athletes

The Education Department on Monday said it has found the University of Pennsylvania in violation of Title IX, the federal law against sex discrimination, for allowing transgender students to compete on its women’s sports teams. 

The department said it had notified Penn President J. Larry Jameson of the finding and distributed a proposed resolution agreement to be signed within 10 days requiring the school to bar transgender athletes from women’s athletic programs and send letters of apology to female athletes whose experiences have been “marred by sex discrimination.” 

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 Jose State University and the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association. That announcement refers to Thomas by name. 

It is unclear whether there are any transgender students currently competing in women’s sports at Penn. The NCAA, of which the university is a member, banned transgender women from women’s sports in February to comply with one of President Trump’s executive orders.  

The University of Pennsylvania has never had a transgender student-athlete policy of its own and has previously said it is following the new NCAA guidelines. 

In 2022, the year she graduated, Thomas became the first transgender person to win an NCAA Division I championship after winning the women’s 500-yard freestyle. At the same championship meet in Atlanta, Thomas tied for fifth place in the women’s 200-yard freestyle with Riley Gaines, a former University of Kentucky swimmer turned conservative political activist who frequently campaigns against the inclusion of transgender athletes in women’s sports. 

Gaines has spoken at length about competing against Thomas on social media, during media interviews and before various state legislatures and Congress. She joined Trump at the White House in February while he signed his executive order to ban transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports and attended his congressional joint address in March as a guest of first lady Melania Trump. 

Conservative lawmakers, including Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), have invited Gaines to the last two annual State of the Union addresses, and state laws named for her in West Virginia and Georgia ban trans students from school sports teams and facilities that match their gender identity. 

On Monday, the Education Department said it would refer Penn to the Justice Department if the school did not voluntarily resolve the violations in its noncompliance finding by May 8. 

“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. 

A spokesperson for the university declined to comment on the department’s announcement or findings. 

The Trump administration in March said it was freezing $175 million in federal funding to the university, Trump’s alma mater, for allowing transgender athletes to compete on women’s sports teams. A senior White House official attributed the move to the school allowing Thomas, who previously swam on Penn’s men’s team, to compete on the women’s team during the 2021-22 season. 

Jameson, the university president, said last month in a statement that the school told the Education Department when it launched its investigation in February that Penn “followed NCAA rules and applicable law as they existed then, and that we now comply with the NCAA policy and the law as they exist today.” 

The Education Department since February has initiated at least a dozen inquiries into states, schools and athletic associations allowing transgender student-athletes to compete in girls’ and women’s sports. Earlier this month, the department referred its Title IX investigation into Maine to the Justice Department, which sued the state the following week in a civil lawsuit accusing state officials of “willfully” violating federal law.