The Trump administration has decided to halt around $175 million in federal funding directed towards the University of Pennsylvania in connection to a controversy over a transgender athlete, according to the White House announcement on Wednesday.
President Donald Trump had previously signed an executive order on February 5, aimed at prohibiting transgender athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports competitions.
The day following this order, the Department of Education commenced an investigation into the University of Pennsylvania’s swimming program.
However, the institution’s federal funding was paused due to a separate review that involved an assessment of discretionary federal funds allotted to universities, as stated by the White House.
The suspended funds were reportedly sourced from the Department of Defense and the Department of Health and Human Services.
A spokesperson for the University of Pennsylvania expressed that the university had not been officially informed of the suspension or received any specifications regarding the decision.
“Importantly, Penn has consistently adhered to NCAA and Ivy League policies concerning student participation in athletic competitions,” said Ron Ozio, the university spokesperson.
“We have previously and still remain fully compliant with regulations applicable not only to Penn but to our peer institutions in the NCAA and Ivy League.” The investigation by the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights revolves around Lia Thomas, a swimmer on Penn’s women’s team and the first openly transgender athlete to secure a Division I title in 2022.
Thomas graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in the same year.
At that time, the NCAA endorsed a sport-specific approach that granted transgender athletes the opportunity to compete, relying on the rules set by the respective sport’s national governing body, international federation, or established International Olympic Committee criteria.
Thomas competed under these guidelines, which permitted female transgender swimmers who had completed one year of hormone replacement therapy to join competitions.
Trump’s executive order regarding transgender athletes proposed that federal funding could be withheld from entities that do not conform to the administration’s interpretation of Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in educational settings.
The order interprets “sex” as the gender assigned to an individual at birth.
Following the executive order, the NCAA revised its policy, moving away from the sport-specific framework to a more generalized policy that restricts participation in women’s sports to athletes assigned female at birth.
Additionally, the Education Department initiated investigations into San Jose State University’s volleyball program and the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association.