The U.S. Department of Education announced Tuesday that the University of Pennsylvania reached a resolution with the Trump administration to bar biological male trans athletes from women’s sports.
The department launched a Title IX investigation on Feb. 6 regarding UPenn’s swimming program, where trans athlete Lia Thomas competed on the women’s team during the 2021–22 season after previously competing with the men.
“Today, the U.S. Department of Education (the Department) announced the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) has entered into a Resolution Agreement to comply with Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX),” the statement read.
According to Fox News, per the DOE’s announcement, under UPenn’s new agreement the following actions will be taken:
- UPenn will restore to female athletes all individual UPenn Division I swimming records, titles, or similar recognitions which were misappropriated by male athletes allowed to compete in female categories;
- UPenn will issue a public statement to the University community stating that it will comply with Title IX, specifying that UPenn will not allow males to compete in female athletic programs or occupy Penn Athletics female intimate facilities;
- The statement will specify that UPenn will adopt biology-based definitions for the words ‘male’ and ‘female’ pursuant to Title IX and consistent with President Trump’s Executive Orders “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism” and “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports”;
- UPenn will post the statement in a prominent location on its main website and on each of its websites for women’s athletics;
- UPenn will rescind any guidance which violated Title IX, remove or revise any internal and public-facing statements or documents that are inconsistent with Title IX, and notify all staff and women’s athletics of all such rescissions; and
- UPenn will send a personalized letter of apology to each impacted female swimmer.
UPenn also issued a statement acknowledging the agreement and indicated it will likely revise its swimming records, stating: “Yesterday, Penn and the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR) resolved a February 2025 investigation into Penn’s compliance with Title IX for women’s athletics. This is a complex issue, and I am pleased that we were able to reach a resolution through the standard OCR process for concluding Title IX investigations.”
