Lia Thomas’ records will be revoked as a result of a new Title IX agreement reached between the university and the federal government.
The Education Department announced on Tuesday that UPenn will no longer allow biological men compete in women’s sports and will remove the records previously held by trans swimmer Lia Thomas. The resolution comes after the Trump administration found that UPenn had violated federal Title IX anti-sex discrimination laws by allowing men to compete against women. The university will now be required to award the second-place finisher in the 2021-2022 NCAA swimming season with the trophies, and to personally apologize to “each impacted female swimmer.”
Despite the agreement, Penn is still facing a lawsuit from three former swimmers that argued they were “emotionally traumatized” by Thomas’ participation. UPenn swimmers Grace Estabrook, Margot Kaczorowski and Ellen Holmquist alleged that the university treated their objections to Thomas as a “psychological problem.” The lawsuit accuses university officials of violating the same law at the heart of the recent deal with President Trump. The activist group funding the lawsuit, the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, addressed the resolution in a statement released Tuesday morning.
“In less than three weeks, lawyers for the University of Pennsylvania will appear in federal district court in Boston, Massachusetts. They have informed the court that they will argue the university did not violate Title IX by allowing Lia Thomas to compete on the women’s swim team,” the statement said. “Will UPenn now admit to the federal judge—just as they did to the Trump Administration today—that they violated Title IX? Or will they continue fighting against accountability and against UPenn’s female swimmers in court?”
Shortly after the resolution was reached, the Trump administration released $175 million in federal funding that had been previously frozen due to the universities lack of cooperation with federal authorities. Department of Education secretary Linda McMahon said the university sought to resume negotiations with the Trump administration shortly after the decision by the President to freeze the funds. McMahon says the university “signed on the dotted line.”
UPenn was among several ivy league institutions impacted by President Trump’s new funding guidelines but now marks the first major agreement struck between a university and the federal government relating to transgender competition. The administration previously froze over $1 billion to Cornell and Harvard universities.
Activist and former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines, who has been very vocal in the fight to protect women’s sports, released her own statement applauding the Trump administration for “refusing to back down on protecting women and girls and restoring our rightful accolades.” Gaines was one of several former athletes to applaud the Trump administration’s handling of the situation.
Some transgender activists have repeatedly argued against President Trump for his views on protecting women’s sports, accusing the President of discriminating against transgender individuals. UPenn’s head of their Gender Studies department called the agreement a “huge disappointment” but declined to specify which part. The decision may not be the only agreement between Trump and an ivy league school, with the President saying a deal with Harvard University could come “over the next week or so.”
