US President Donald Trump’s administration has suspended roughly $175 million in federal funding for the University of Pennsylvania, citing concerns over transgender participation in women’s sports, the White House announced Wednesday.
The decision follows President Donald Trump’s February 5 executive order barring transgender athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s sports. The day after signing the order, the department of education launched an investigation into Penn’s swimming program, focusing on transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, who last competed for the school in 2022.
However, the White House clarified that the suspension of federal funds came from a separate review of discretionary federal money allocated to universities. The frozen funds originated from the department of defense and the department of health and human services.
A spokesperson for Penn said the university had not been notified about the funding suspension.
“It is important to note, however, that Penn has always followed NCAA and Ivy League policies regarding student participation on athletic teams,” said Ron Ozio, Penn’s spokesperson. “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 education department’s office for civil rights is investigating whether Penn violated Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in education, by allowing Thomas to compete. Thomas, the first openly transgender athlete to win a Division I title, swam for Penn’s women’s team before graduating in 2022.
At the time, the NCAA permitted transgender athletes to compete under guidelines set by individual sports’ national governing bodies, international federations, or the International Olympic Committee. Thomas met the requirements, which allowed transgender women to compete after one year of hormone replacement therapy.
Trump’s executive order, however, mandates that federal agencies can withhold funding from institutions that do not follow the administration’s interpretation of Title IX—defining “sex” strictly as the gender assigned at birth.
In response to the order, the NCAA swiftly altered its policy, eliminating the sport-by-sport approach and implementing a blanket rule that restricts women’s sports to athletes assigned female at birth.
The University of Pennsylvania is not the only institution under scrutiny. The department of education has also launched investigations into San Jose State University’s volleyball program and the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association as part of a broader effort to enforce the administration’s stance on transgender participation in athletics.
