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Penn entered into a resolution agreement with the Department of Education to resolve an investigation into the University’s compliance with Title IX on Monday.
According to an Education Department press release, Penn will comply with the three demands issued by the federal agency in April: release a statement affirming compliance with Title IX, restore accolades “misappropriated” by transgender athletes to female athletes, and send individual apology letters to the affected athletes. The University will additionally issue a public statement specifying that Penn Athletics “will adopt biology-based definitions for the words ‘male’ and ‘female’ pursuant to Title IX and consistent with President Trump’s Executive Orders.”
The July 1 announcement comes more than two months after the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights found Penn in violation of Title IX following the University’s decision to allow 2022 College graduate and transgender swimmer Lia Thomas to compete on the University’s women’s swimming and diving team during the 2021-22 season.
“Today’s resolution agreement with UPenn is yet another example of the Trump effect in action. Thanks to the leadership of President Trump, UPenn has agreed both to apologize for its past Title IX violations and to ensure that women’s sports are protected at the University for future generations of female athletes,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon in the Education Department’s press release.
A request for comment was left with the White House.
According to a Penn press release, “The University of Pennsylvania will comply with Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, 20 U.S.C. §§ 1681 et seq. (“Title IX”), as interpreted by the Department of Education, in all of its athletics programs.”
“Our commitment to ensuring a respectful and welcoming environment for all of our students is unwavering,” Penn President Larry Jameson wrote in a Tuesday letter to the Penn community. “At the same time, we must comply with federal requirements, including executive orders, and NCAA eligibility rules, so our teams and student-athletes may engage in competitive intercollegiate sports.”
On April 28, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights found Penn in violation of Title IX after the University allowed 2022 College graduate and transgender swimmer Lia Thomas to compete on the Penn women’s swimming and diving team during the 2021-22 season.
The federal agency issued three demands to Penn: release a statement affirming compliance with Title IX, restore accolades “misappropriated” by transgender athletes to female athletes, and send individual apology letters to the affected athletes. OCR gave the University 10 days to comply before risking referral to the Department of Justice for “enforcement proceedings.”
Penn quietly submitted its response “on time,” a University spokesperson previously told the DP.
“UPenn has a choice to make: do the right thing for its female students and come into full compliance with Title IX immediately or continue to advance an extremist political project that violates federal antidiscrimination law and puts UPenn’s federal funding at risk,” Education Department Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor wrote in the announcement.
The Penn spokesperson previously told The Daily Pennsylvanian that Penn has “always followed NCAA and Ivy League policies” and does not have its own policy “regarding student participation on athletic teams.”
“Indeed, we have been in the past, and remain today, in full compliance with all the regulations that apply not only to Penn, but all of our NCAA and Ivy League peer institutions,” the spokesperson previously wrote.
At the time of publication, all records received by Thomas while representing Penn are still listed in the University’s record book.
The agreement comes after the University moved to dismiss a lawsuit — filed on Feb. 4 by three former Penn swimmers — alleging that the four defendants violated Title IX regulations by allowing a “trans-identifying male swimmer” to compete in the 2022 Ivy League Championships.
The White House announced on March 19 that it would freeze more than $175 million in federal funding to Penn, citing the University’s alleged failure to comply with an executive order barring transgender athletes from women’s sports and promising to “rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities.”
At the time of the funding freeze, a senior White House official wrote in a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian that the change was not a result of the Title IX investigation into Penn but rather an “immediate proactive action to review discretionary funding streams to … universities.”
The announcement comes after sources told CNN that universities and institutions of higher learning have been quietly negotiating with the White House to avoid “the same aggressive targeting of Harvard University.”
June 4 press release from OCR notified Columbia University’s accreditor — Middle States Commission on Higher Education — that Columbia has violated “federal antidiscrimination laws.” This announcement means that the commission must notify Columbia of its violation and “establish a plan” that the university must follow — if it does not, the accreditor “must take appropriate action” against Columbia.
This action comes after OCR launched an investigation into Columbia in February, following allegations that the university violated Title VI by acting with “deliberate indifference towards the harassment of Jewish students.”
Harvard faced similar investigations — allegations of antisemitism and racial discrimination against the university cited Title VI. In April, the Trump administration sent Harvard a list of demands, which the university rejected on April 15. Hours after Harvard’s decision, the Trump administration paused over $2.2 billion in funding to Harvard.
Harvard has been a continued target of the Trump administration, which in recent weeks has looked to freeze billions of dollars in federal research funding and ban the university from hosting international students.
CNN reported that the that the Trump administration is looking for “a name-brand university to make a deal like the law firms made a deal that covers not just antisemitism and protests, but DEI and intellectual diversity.”
The goal is for Trump to publicly claim a deal with a prestigious institution, such as an Ivy League school, to signal that the administration does not intend to “destroy higher education” according to CNN.
