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The University of Pennsylvania agreed to a resolution with the administration of President Donald Trump to keep men out of women’s sports and apologize with all the swimmers who were affected by the presence of Trans Lia Lia Thomas athlete in the 2021-22 season.
However, a lawsuit against the University by three former women’s swimmers about their experience by sharing a team with Thomas remains active.
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Upenn Grace Estabrook swimmer (Courtesy of Grace Estabrook)
The former UpenN Grace Estabrook swimmers, Margot Kaczorowski and Ellen Holmquist filed their demand against the University, Harvard University, NCAA and Ivy League in February. law.”
The activist group that finances the demand, the Independent Women’s Sports Council (icons), issued a statement on Tuesday that addresses the UPENN resolution.
“In less than three weeks, the lawyers of the University of Pennsylvania will appear in the Federal District Court in Boston, Massachusetts. They have informed the court that argue that the university did not violate the title IX by allowing Lia Thomas to compete in the women’s swimming team,” said the statement.
“Will the federal judge admit now, as they did with the Trump administration today, who violated title IX? Or will they continue to fight against responsibility and against the women’s swimming women in court?”
Meanwhile, the former UPENN swimmer, Paula Scanlan, who is not part of the demand, but was one of Thomas’s first teammates to speak against the situation, shared the email she received from the university apologizing.
The icons added in their statement that Tuesday’s announcement should serve as a warning for other institutions.
“We, together with the female athletes we represent, are grateful to the Trump administration and the Department of Education for their commitment to restore justice in women’s sports. Today’s announcement, with respect to one of the most notorious violations of Title IX, sends a clear message to all educational institutions: denying equal opportunities and the right to privacy is unequivocally incorrect,” the statement continued.
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“The icons remain dedicated to responsible for organizations such as the NCAA, the Ivy League and the responsibility of the University of Pennsylvania, ensuring that legal precedents are established so that such violations can never happen again.”
Pak Gazette Digital has communicated with UPENN to obtain an answer to the declaration of the icons.
Thomas, a biological man, previously competed for the 2017-20 UPENN male swimming team under the name of Will Thomas. According to the lawsuit, Thomas was introduced by female chief coach Mike Schnur to female swimmers during a team meeting in the fall of 2019 as his incoming teammate.
Each of the three plaintiffs affirms that the experience left them “repeatedly emotionally traumatized.”
The plaintiffs claim that university administrators promoted Pro-Trans ideology on them during the process of accepting Thomas in the team and their locker room. The former swimmers say they were taken to feel that their concerns for being teammates with Thomas were rooted in a “psychological problem.”
“UPENN administrators told women that if someone was struggling to accept Thomas’s participation in the UpenN Women’s team, they must seek advice and support from CAPS and the LBGTQ center,” he alleges the demand.
“The administrators also invited women to a talk entitled, ‘Trans 101.’ Therefore, women were led to understand that Upenn’s position was that if a woman in the team had a problem with a transdidifier man in her team, that woman had a psychological problem and needed advice. “
The plaintiffs also claim that the administrators warned them not to speak against the situation publicly.
“UPENN administrators continued to tell women that if women talk publicly about their concerns about Thomas’ participation in the women’s team, the reputation of those who complain that Thomas in the team would be contaminated with transfusing for the rest of their lives and probably could never get a job,” says the demand.
The three swimming women claim that they were believed to be removed from the team if they tried to protest Thomas’s participation before the Ivy League 2022 championships.
“The coach Schnur and the UPENN SWIM team administrators told them that UPENN administrators closely coordinated with the NCAA and the Ivy League to ensure that Thomas was eligible for the women’s swimming season 2021-2022,” the demand alleged.
“These statements about a close coordination between UPENN, the Ivy League and the NCAA with respect to Thomas’s eligibility led the members of the Upenn women’s team to understand the resistance or protest of Thomas’s participation in the team or its presence in the costumes would be useless and could result in women withdrawing from the team or UPENN.”
The demand alleges that the coaches and administrators of UpenN told the swimmers of the women not to talk about the situation of Thomas. Schnur supposedly told women’s swimmers that Thomas would not share a costume with them when they asked after the initial introduction.
But that supposedly changed later.
Thomas officially began to practice and compete with women’s swimmers in the fall of 2021.
And that was when the swimmers say they discovered that Schnur’s alleged statement that Thomas would not share a costume was not true.
“When Upenn’s swimmers returned to school in the autumn of 2021, they were surprised to discover that Thomas was allowed to use women’s costumes in UpenN and they would be allowed to wear the women’s costume at swimming meetings,” he alleges the demand.
“Margot [Kaczorowski] He only learned that Thomas had been authorized by UPENN to use the women’s costume when [Kaczorowski] He entered the women’s locker room to find Thomas in front of her by changing her clothes. “
Paula Scanlan shares her story as a swimmer at UPENN competing against her teammate Lia Thomas, the first transgender athlete D-1 to win a title. The Title IX bus tour made its first stop in Scranton, Pennsylvania, gathering against the participation of Trans athletes in women’s sports. (Aimee Dilger)
According to the suit, Kaczorowski faced Schnur crying for his shock to discover that Thomas would now share a costume with her. She claims that the coach replied saying: “I know it’s wrong, but there is nothing I can do.”
“Coach Schnur told the plaintiffs that he would be fired by UPENN if he did not allow Thomas to use the female costumes and compete in the female swimming team,” he alleges the lawsuit.
In December 2021, another team meeting was held to discuss Thomas’s presence in the team and the attention of the media that attracted, according to judicial documents. The swimmers claim that they were told that Thomas would continue on their team and that “Lia’s swimming is not negotiable.”
UPENN approached the resolution with the Trump administration in a statement on Tuesday.
“The OCR Department of Education investigated the participation of a transgender athlete in the women’s swimming team three years ago, during the 2021-2022 swimming season. At that time, Penn complied with the eligibility rules of the NCAA and Title IX as interpreted then,” said the statement.
“Penn has always followed, and continues to follow, Title IX and the applicable NCAA policy with respect to transgender athletes. The NCAA eligibility rules changed in February 2025 with executive orders 14168 and 14201 and Penn will continue to comply with these new rules.
“Penn has never maintained its own policy regarding the participation of transgender athletes in intercollegial sports. We do not maintain our own policies related to other NCAA rules. We adhere to the rules of the NCAA and IVY League that are designed to guarantee fair and transparent athletic competitions for all schools and participants.”
