Penn wipes trans swimmer records in deal with Trump

What happened

The University of Pennsylvania said Tuesday it will bar transgender students from its women’s sports teams as part of a deal with the Trump administration. Penn also agreed to retroactively strip champion trans female swimmer Lia Thomas of her records and titles and to apologize to other swimmers “disadvantaged” by her participation on the women’s team during the 2021-22 season.

Who said what

Tuesday’s settlement is the latest development in President Donald Trump’s “ongoing campaign to remake higher education” by using taxpayer dollars to punish universities for policies that have provoked his “ire,” The Wall Street Journal said. Trump has “eagerly sought to reduce transgender people’s participation in public life,” The New York Times said, and Penn’s agreement bows to the administration’s “new interpretation” of Title IX, the law that bans sex discrimination in education.

Penn allowed Thomas to compete under Title IX and NCAA rules “as then interpreted,” Penn President J. Larry Jameson said in a statement. But failing to resolve the new administration’s transgender-focused Title IX investigation “could have had significant and lasting implications” for the university. The NCAA began restricting trans women athletes after Trump signed an executive order threatening to “rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities.” By Tuesday night, Thomas’ name had been removed from the school’s online records for the 100, 200 and 500 freestyle, though a note underneath said she had set those records “competing under eligibility rules in effect at the time.”

What next?

It was “not immediately clear” whether Penn’s agreement would “prompt the Trump administration to restore $175 million in research funding that it suspended in March,” the Times said, but it “appeared designed to limit the threat of additional repercussions for Penn.”