Trump hits UPenn with sanctions over males in girls’ sports

The Trump administration is delaying $175 million in federal funding for The University of Pennsylvania for allowing boys and men to compete against girls and women in athletics.

A senior Trump administration official said the loss of this funding could be just the beginning of the penalties for Penn, Fox Business reported.

The monies currently being withheld are discretionary funding from the Department of Defense and Health and Human Services. The university could lose additional federal funding as a result of a pending civil rights investigation regarding transgender participation in women’s sports.

Prior to this week’s action, universities around the country were warned by the Trump administration they could be at risk of losing funds over the issue.  

Subsequently, the administration opened an investigation into former Penn swimmer Lia Thomas, a biological man, who was allowed to compete as a woman and eventually won an NCAA’s women swimming title.  

“The previous administration trampled the rights of American women and girls – and ignored the indignities to which they were subjected in bathrooms and locker rooms – to promote a radical transgender ideology,” said Craig Trainor, the U.S. Education Department’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights.  

Three former female swimmers who competed with Thomas are also suing the university to strip Thomas of the swimming records the transgender swimmer set, according to local ABC News 6.  

Paula Scanlan, who was on the women’s swim team with Thomas, testified before Congress that having to share a locker room with a swimmer who has male genitalia causes women to suffer from sexual trauma.  

“I know this because I am one of those women,” Scanlan told Congress.   

During her testimony Scanlan said that, in addition to the humiliation she experienced sharing a locker room with Thomas, she had been sexually assaulted by someone else when she was 16 years old.   

In a statement to the Penn student newspaper, The Daily Pennsylvanian, the White House said the pause on the $175 million in funding was a an “immediate proactive action to review discretionary funding streams to … universities.”  

In a statement to Fox News Digital, the university said it hasn’t received official notification of the funding decision by the White House. In the statement, the university sounded as if it was testing out its defense strategy in court over charges of discrimination against women.  

“It is important to note, however, that Penn has always followed NCAA and Ivy League policies regarding student participation on athletic teams,” Penn told Fox. “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.” 

Shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump, who is a 1968 alumnus of Penn’s Wharton School of Business, signed an executive order to prevent biological males from competing against biological females in sports.  

“It is the policy of the United States to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy,” said the order.  

Fox Digital reported that outside of the $175 million, Penn receives another $1 billion in funding from the federal government.  

“Bigger question,” wrote one X user. “Why on earth is one of the wealthiest private Universities in the US (with a $22 billion endowment) receiving over a billion dollars a year in federal aid in the first place?” 

The Daily Pennsylvanian reported in October that Penn’s private contributions from donors totals $22.3 billion as of Jun. 30, 2024, providing $1.1 billion in private revenue annually to the school.  

But Penn isn’t just making the federal government angry over the school’s policies.   

Billionaires Cliff Asness, Marc Rowan, former US Ambassador Jon Huntsman and Ronald Lauder, along with millionaire venture capitalist David Magerman, have all pulled their donations from the university over the last year because of unchecked antisemitism on campus.