Donald Trump pauses $US175m to Penn Uni over trans swimmer

The Trump administration will withhold $US175m from the university for allowing a transgender athlete to compete on the women’s swim team.

University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas. Picture: Getty Images

The Trump administration said it is pausing about $US175m ($275m) in federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania for allowing a transgender athlete to compete on the women’s swimming team.

A Penn spokesman said the university had not received any official notification or details of the funding pause. He noted that Penn “has always followed NCAA and Ivy League policies regarding student participation on athletic teams”.

A senior White House official said Penn permitted the athlete to compete in the team, overturning records won by women. It also gave the athlete access to the women’s locker room, the official said.

Neither the administration nor the school named the athlete. Lia Thomas, a transgender swimmer, competed on the women’s swimming team at Penn in 2022. That year, she became the first openly transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I championship, winning the 500-yard freestyle. Thomas came out as transgender in the summer of 2019 and soon began hormone therapy.

A representative for Thomas didn’t respond to a request for comment. Three former Penn swimmers sued the school and the organisers of an Ivy League championship last month for allowing Thomas to compete, saying it made the competition unfair. Also in February, the Education Department said it was investigating Penn for possibly violating the rights of female swimmers when it allowed Thomas on its women’s team.

Banning transgender girls and women from female sports became a focus of Donald Trump’s campaign. Last month, he signed an executive order titled Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports that would ban transgender girls and women from participating in female sports events in schools and colleges. Mr Trump received his undergraduate degree from Penn’s Wharton School in 1968.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration targeted another Ivy League institution, Columbia University, for the way it handled pro-Palestinan protests on its campus, cancelling roughly $US400m in federal grants and contracts. The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Columbia is getting close to yielding to the administration’s demands to restore funding, including banning masks and empowering campus police.

Also on Wednesday, the Trump administration said the Maine Department of Education was in violation of Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, for allowing transgender female athletes to compete in the state and use female locker rooms. The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights had launched an investigation into the state agency last month following a public spat between Mr Trump and Maine Governor Janet Mills.

The department said Maine school districts must stop allowing males to participate in female sports or risk losing federal funding.

The Wall Street Journal