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Penn Commona at the University of Pennsylvania
University officials said they are complying with all NCAA policies, which now bar trans women from women's sports.
Donald Trump’s administration has paused $175 million in federal funds to the University of Pennsylvania, saying it lets transgender women (whom the administration considers men) compete in women’s sports.
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The administration announced the pause Wednesday in a post on X, formerly Twitter. It is in keeping with Trump’s February executive order saying federal funding would be withheld from K-12 schools, colleges, and universities that allow trans females to participate alongside cisgender women and girls. At the signing ceremony, he falsely suggested that trans athletes have won “more than 3,500 victories” and “invaded more than 11,000 competitions,” citing isolated cases while misrepresenting the reality of trans participation in sports.
In 2022, trans woman Lia Thomas competed on the women’s swimming team at the Philadelphia-based Ivy League university and became the first known trans athlete to win a National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I championship. She won the 500-yard freestyle at the NCAA women’s national competition that year. She has since graduated.
A university spokesperson told NBC News Wednesday that administrators had heard about the suspension through the media but had not received official notification.
“It is important to note, however, that Penn has always followed NCAA and Ivy League policies regarding student participation on athletic teams,” the spokesperson said via email. “We have been in the past, and remain today, in full compliance with the regulations that apply to not only Penn, but all of our NCAA and Ivy League peer institutions.”
The day after Trump issued the order, NCAA President Charlie Baker said the organization would comply. “The NCAA is an organization made up of 1,100 colleges and universities in all 50 states that collectively enroll more than 530,000 student-athletes,” said a statement from Baker. “We strongly believe that clear, consistent, and uniform eligibility standards would best serve today's student-athletes instead of a patchwork of conflicting state laws and court decisions. To that end, President Trump’s order provides a clear, national standard.”
The NCAA’s decision came even though Baker had recently testified before a U.S. Senate panel that fewer than 10 trans athletes currently compete in NCAA sports, meaning they make up an infinitesimally small fraction of collegiate sports participants.
From 2011 to 2022, the NCAA allowed trans women to participate in women’s sports as long as they had completed a year of testosterone suppression. The NCAA changed that policy in 2022, allowing each sport’s governing body to set the standards.
In February, the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Education (which Trump is shutting down) announced that it was investigating UPenn, San José State University, and the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association for potential violations of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded education programs.
San José State came under fire last year for allegedly letting a trans woman compete on the women's volleyball team, leading some schools to forfeit games against it. The athlete in question has never confirmed she is trans, and the university has never confirmed the presence of a trans woman on the team.
