Trump administration says it is chopping $175 million in funding to College of Pennsylvania

The Trump administration says it is chopping $175 million in funding to the College of Pennsylvania over insurance policies permitting transgender girls to compete in girls’s sports activities.

White Home officers wrote in an e mail to CBS Philadelphia that the funding lower is related to Lia Thomas, a transgender lady and former Penn swimmer who made headlines and drew backlash when she competed for the ladies’s swimming crew.

“UPenn infamously permitted a male to compete on its girls’s swimming crew, overturning a number of information hard-earned by girls, and granting the totally intact male entry to the locker room. That is NOT the results of the Title IX investigation launched by the Division of Training,” a senior White Home official wrote within the e mail.

Thomas got here in first within the 500-meter freestyle on the 2022 NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships and had different prime finishes in occasions on the Ivy League Championships that 12 months.

Some girls swimmers disputed these wins. A lawsuit filed in a Massachusetts federal court docket seeks to have her information faraway from the document books. Individually, the Training Division launched a Title IX investigation into Penn permitting Thomas to compete on the ladies’s swimming crew.

On the time, NCAA laws allowed for trans girls to compete on groups that aligned with their gender identification. Trump undid these protections in an govt order signed in February.

A senior White Home official mentioned in an e mail that the funding is an “rapid proactive motion to evaluate discretionary funding streams to these universities.” The funding that was paused got here from the Division of Protection and the Division of Well being and Human Providers.

A Penn spokesperson mentioned the Philadelphia-based college is conscious of media studies and social media posts in regards to the funding being pulled, however has obtained no formal discover from the White Home.

“We’re conscious of media studies suggesting a suspension of $175 million in federal funding to Penn, however haven’t but obtained any official notification or any particulars,” the spokesperson mentioned in an e mail. “It is very important word, nonetheless, that Penn has at all times adopted NCAA and Ivy League insurance policies concerning scholar participation on athletic groups. We have now been up to now, and stay as we speak, in full compliance with the laws that apply to not solely Penn, however all of our NCAA and Ivy League peer establishments.”

Wednesday morning, the White Home’s @RapidResponse47 account shared a clip from Fox Enterprise on X on the information.

The White Home official mentioned Wednesday’s motion is separate from an Training Division investigation into Penn over alleged violations of Title IX, a 1972 legislation barring intercourse discrimination in schooling.

Metropolis Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, whose district contains Penn’s campus, denounced the choice in a press release.

“These funds don’t have anything to do with transgender scholar athletes — that is nothing greater than a hole pretext to focus on our neighborhood,” Gauthier’s assertion mentioned partly. “What Trump is admittedly doing is threatening tens of hundreds of jobs, our hospitals, lifesaving analysis tasks, academic packages for underserved youth, and a lot extra.”

Gauthier added that some prior actions from the Trump administration haven’t held as much as lawsuits and that she is proud that many transgender Philadelphians name her district dwelling.

“They make our neighborhood stronger and a greater place to dwell. I’ll at all times stand with them,” Gauthier mentioned.

Gauthier additionally mentioned the transfer just isn’t about athletics however about attacking Philadelphia. 

“I imagine that is about President Trump attempting to assault Democratic cities like Philadelphia. He understands we’re an ‘eds and meds’ economic system and he is attempting to take goal on the metropolis. That is meant to divide us,” she mentioned.

Trump graduated from The Wharton Faculty at Penn in 1968, in line with the Every day Pennsylvanian scholar newspaper.