Trump administration suspends $175 million in federal funding for Penn over transgender swimmer

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has suspended approximately $175 million in federal funding for the University of Pennsylvania over a transgender swimmer who last competed for the school in 2022, the White House said Wednesday.

President Trump signed an executive order on Feb.5 that was intended to ban transgender athletes from competing in girls and women’s sports. The next day, the Education Department announced an investigation into Penn’s swimming program.

But the Ivy League school’s federal money was suspended in a separate review of discretionary federal money going to universities, the White House said. The money that was paused came from the Defense Department and the Department of Health and Human Services.

A Penn spokesperson said the school had not received any notification or details of the action.

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

The investigation opened by the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights at Penn focuses on Lia Thomas, who swam on the school’s women’s team and was the first openly transgender athlete to win a Division I title in 2022. Thomas graduated from Penn the same year.

At the time, the NCAA used a sport-by-sport approach to allowing transgender athletes to participate, deferring to an individual sport’s national governing organization, international federation or prior established International Olympic Committee criteria. Thomas competed under those guidelines, which allowed female transgender swimmers who had completed one year of hormone replacement therapy to compete.

Trump’s executive order on transgender athletes allows federal agencies to withhold funding if an entity does not follow the administration’s interpretation of Title IX, which outlaws sex-based discrimination in schools and colleges. The order interprets “sex” as the gender someone was assigned at birth.

The NCAA changed its policy the day after the order was signed, ending its sport-by-sport practice in favor of a blanket policy that only allows athletes assigned female at birth to participate in women’s sports.

The Education Department also opened reviews of San Jose State University volleyball and the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Assn.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced that it’s pulling $400 million from Columbia University, canceling grants and contracts because of what the government describes as the Ivy League school’s failure to squelch antisemitism on campus.

Miller and Ma write for the Associated Press.