With millions of dollars of research money hanging in the balance, the University reached an agreement with the federal government regarding the participation of transgender athlete Lia Thomas C’22 on Penn’s women’s swimming team in 2021–22.
In an email to the University community on July 1, Penn President J. Larry Jameson wrote that Penn and the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights resolved an investigation into Penn’s compliance with Title IX for women’s athletics that began in February after President Donald Trump W’68 signed an executive order aimed at restricting federal funding for educational institutions that allow transgender women to participate in women’s sports.
Jameson reiterated that Penn was “in compliance with NCAA eligibility rules and Title IX as then interpreted” when Thomas, a former swimmer on Penn’s men’s team, joined the women’s team after transitioning and completing more than a year of testosterone suppression treatment. Jameson added that Penn will “continue to adhere” to the NCAA’s new rules that limit competition in women’s sports to student-athletes assigned female at birth only, a change that was adopted in February following the Trump administration’s executive order.
“Penn has never maintained a policy of its own regarding the participation of transgender athletes in intercollegiate sports,” Jameson stressed. “Nor do we maintain our own policies related to other NCAA rules.” Nevertheless, Penn found itself in the center of a heated national debate after Thomas set several program and Ivy League records and won an NCAA title in the 500-yard freestyle more than three years ago [“Sports,” May|Jun 2022].
As part of the resolution agreement with the Department of Education, Thomas’s three individual school records were scrubbed from the Penn Athletics website to “indicate who would now hold the records under current eligibility guidelines.” Other actions the University took included “releasing a public statement reaffirming our commitment to fully comply with Title IX in all of our athletic programs and to continuously adapt our practices as Title IX evolves over time,” as well as sending apology letters to female athletes “who experienced a competitive disadvantage or experienced anxiety” due to Thomas’s inclusion on the team.
Jameson noted that had the investigation gone unresolved, it “could have had significant and lasting implications for the University of Pennsylvania.” Although his memo did not address federal funding directly, reports indicated that after the agreement the White House released $175 million in previously frozen federal research funds earmarked for Penn.
“Penn remains committed to fostering a community that is welcoming, inclusive, and open to all students, faculty, and staff,” Jameson concluded. “I share this commitment, just as I remain dedicated to preserving and advancing the University’s vital and enduring mission.”
The announcement made national headlines and elicited strong responses from people in the Penn community and beyond. The executive committee of Penn’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP–Penn) issued a statement asserting that “Penn has put a price tag on our values,” thus making “all trans students, faculty, staff, and community members less safe, exposing them to renewed and emboldened harassment and discriminatory treatment.” In an opinion piece for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Penn education professor Jonathan Zimmerman wrote that regardless of one’s views on the “complicated question” surrounding the fairness of trans athletes competing in women’s sports, the University “caved” to the federal government and apologized even though it knew it had followed the law. “What does it profit a university if it gains the whole world of federal dollars and loses its own soul?”
Other faculty members recognized the difficult challenge for Penn, which hasn’t been the only university to strike a deal with the Trump administration to protect its funding and research operations. Penn Carey Law professor Claire Finkelstein told the Inquirer that the University didn’t really have a choice and in a statement to the Daily Pennsylvanian noted that Penn’s decision was “a reasonable one in an environment that is becoming increasingly unreasonable for all institutions of higher learning.” —DZ
You could not tell this complicated story any better than you did ! Well done. Paul Corliss Wharton 56’
The story was actually a very simple, clear story of a dramatic lack of leadership at Penn and a possible outside influence from DC on this and on several other simmering fiascos at Penn.
Many were extremely disappointed in the appalling lack of leadership by the then President of Penn for subverting Ivy League standards of sportsmanship and fair play against Penn women!!, in favor of the well known and long corrupted standards of the NCAA, while also severely subverting Free Speech on Penn Campus as we have never seen before, due to her support for a huge man swimming as a female.
Clearly the editors of Gazette are also still confused about the issue by using the bizarre phrase, “assigned at birth” in the article. And one might ask, why our former President has never been held accountable for the whole embarrassing and sophomoric fiasco that she went to the mat to support?
Class of 1970