Harrisburg, Pa. – The Trump administration said Monday that the University of Pennsylvania violated the laws that guarantee equal opportunities in athletics by letting a transgender swimmer compare in the women's team of the school and in team facilities.
The Declaration of the Administration does not appoint Lia Thomas, the transgender swimmer who last competed for the Ivy League school in Philadelphia in 2022 and was the first openly transgender athlete to win a title of division I that year, an award that Thomas now faces the loss.
But the investigation opened in February for the Office of Civil Rights of the United States Department of Education focused on Thomas, who became a main transgender athletes symbol and a prominent political objective of Republicans and President Donald Trump.
The department said that Penn violated title IX, which prohibits sexual discrimination in schools and schools, “denying equal opportunities by allowing men to compete in female intercollegial athletics and occupy intimate facilities only for women.”
Penn did not have immediate comments on Monday, but Penn has said in the past that he always followed the policies of the NCAA and Ivy League regarding the participation of students in sports teams, both when Thomas swam and currently.
The department said Penn has 10 days to voluntarily resolve violations or risk prosecution. The department wants Penn to issue a statement that says it will comply with Title IX; Effectively strip Thomas of any prize or registration in swimming competitions of Division I; and apologize with each female swimmer “whose individual recognition is restored by expressing an apology in the name of the university for allowing her educational experience in athletics to be tarnished by sexual discrimination.”
The Trump administration in March suspended approximately $ 175 million in federal funds for Penn for its decision to let Thomas compete, said the White House. The federal money of the Ivy League came from the Department of Defense and the Department of Health and Human Services.
In 2022, the NCAA used a sports approach to Deportivo to allow transgender athletes to participate, postponing to the National Government Organization of an individual sport, the International Federation or the previous criteria of the International Olympic Committee.
Thomas competed under those guidelines, which allowed the transgender swimmers who had completed a year of hormonal replacement therapy to compete.
The NCAA changed its policy on the day after Trump signed an executive order on February 5 that was intended to prohibit transgender athletes in girls and women's sports. That ended his sports practice by athlete in favor of a general policy that only allows athletes assigned to women at birth participating in women's sports.
The Department of Education also opened volleyball reviews of the San José State University, the Public Schools of Denver, the Public Schools of Portland, the Association of School Activities of Oregon and the Interestic Athletic Association of Massachusetts. He also demanded the state of Maine to force him to prohibit transgender athletes from girls and female sports or prosecution.
