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First in Fox: The United States Department of Education announced on Tuesday that the University of Pennsylvania agreed to resolve with the administration of President Donald Trump to keep biological trans athletes outside women’s sports, in a statement provided to Pak Gazette Digital.
The department previously launched an investigation into UPENN on February 6 for the violations of Title IX that occurred in the Swimming Program. The Trans athlete, Lia Thomas, competed for the women’s team in the 2021-22 season, after competing previously by the male team.
“Today, the United States Department of Education (the Department) announced that the University of Pennsylvania (UPENN) has held a resolution agreement to comply with the title IX of the educational amendments of 1972 (Title IX),” reads the statement.
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Riley Gaines, now a spokesman for the Independent Women’s Forum, tied Lia Thomas for fifth place in the 200 free style in the NCAA swimming and diving championships. (Brett Davis-USA Today Sports)
According to the announcement of the DOE, under the new UPENN agreement, the following actions will be taken:
- Upenn will restore female athletes, all swimming records of the individual division I, similar titles or recognitions that were embezzled by male athletes allowed to compete in female categories;
- UPENN will issue a public statement to the university community indicating that it will comply with Title IX, specifying that UPENN will not allow men to compete in female athletic programs or occupy female intimate facilities of Penn Athletics;
- The statement will specify that Upenn will adopt definitions based on biology for the ‘male and’ female ‘words in accordance with title IX and consisting of the executive orders of President Trump “defend women from the extremism of gender ideology” and “keep men out of women’s sports”;
- UPENN will publish the statement in an outstanding location on its main website and on each of its websites for female athletics;
- UPENN will terminate any orientation that will violate title IX, eliminate or review any internal and public document or document that are inconsistent with title IX, and notify all female staff and athletics of all these termination; and
- UpenN will send a personalized apology letter to each affected female swimmer.
The Secretary of Education of the United States, Linda McMahon, accredited Trump for the resolution.
“Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, UPENN has agreed to apologize for his previous violations of Title IX and ensure that women’s sports are protected at the University for future athletes generations,” McMahon said in a statement.
“Today is a great victory for women and girls not only at the University of Pennsylvania, but in our entire nation. The department praises UPENN for rectifying their past damages against women and girls, and we will continue to fight relentlessly to restore the appropriate application of Title IX and enforce to the greater extent of the law.”
The former UPENN female swimmer, Paula Scanlan, who was the first of Thomas teammates in the women’s team to speak against the school for allowing the situation to develop, he told Pak Gazette Digital that he is “grateful.”
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“I am deeply grateful to the Trump administration for standing firm in the protection of women and girls and restoring our legitimate praise,” said Scanlan.
“It owes its strong leadership that my alma mater now knows that he has no choice but to begin the process of reforming his policies to defend women’s rights. Today marks a transcendental step to repair the past abuse of female athletes and forge a future where sexual discrimination no longer limits the potential of girls.”
Scanlan is no longer the only one of Thomas’s former teammates to speak.
Three other Upenn swimmers filed a lawsuit against the University on February 5, the same day Trump signed the executive order to “keep men out of women’s sports.”
The lawsuit sought that Thomas’s praise to retire and redistribute the swimmers of the women who competed against the athlete, and alleges that the university administrators suggested that any swimming woman opposed to Thomas competing with them had a “psychological problem” and referred to the LGBTQ center of the school.
The Trump administration later froze $ 175 million in funds for school on March 20. Then, on April 28, the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Education announced that its investigation concluded that UPENN violated title IX in its management of the situation of Thomas.
The Thomas saga in the NCAA 2022 championship is largely considered a cultural turning point in the national debate on transgender athletes in women’s sports. At that time, the current conservative activist Riley Gaines was just a dentistry student who had to settle for a draw with Thomas in one of the events of the NCAA championship.
Since then, Gaines has taken the initiative on a complete political platform focused on combating male inclusion in women’s sports, derived from their experience competing against Thomas in 2022.
Gaines previously told Pak Gazette Digital that he would send a note of “thanks” to “people like” Thomas for drawing attention to the problem at that time, since he believes he influenced the 2024 elections.
“I think we should send a note of thanks to people like Will Thomas, I really do, signed and sealed by me. I will sign the thank you note, I will write it, because I think he gave us the elections,” Gaines said.
“There was much that was wrong with Joe Biden, his administration and the Democratic Party as a whole outside the sports things … but this was the perfect visual. It’s like the episode of South Park … painted the image that many of us were worried about a time, but it came true.”
TO national output survey Made by the Legislative Women’s Action Committee for Women for America, it found that 70% of moderate voters saw the issue of “Donald Trump’s opposition to transgender children and men who interpret sports of girls and women and women and transgender men and men who use girls and women’s baths” as is important for them. In addition, 6% said it was the most important issue of all, while 44% said it was “very important.”
Pak Gazette Digital communicated with the representative of UpenN and Thomas to comment.
