1 year ago
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Associated Press
Jul 1, 2025, 04:34 PM ET
WASHINGTON -- The University of Pennsylvania has agreed to prohibition transgender women from its women's sports teams to resoluteness a national civilian rights lawsuit that recovered the schoolhouse violated the rights of pistillate athletes.
The U.S. Education Department announced the voluntary statement Tuesday. The lawsuit focused connected Lia Thomas, the transgender swimmer who past competed for the Ivy League schoolhouse successful Philadelphia successful 2022, erstwhile she became the archetypal openly transgender jock to triumph a Division I title.
It's portion of the Trump administration's broader effort to region transgender athletes from girls' and women's sports.
Under the agreement, Penn agreed to reconstruct each idiosyncratic Division I swimming records and titles to pistillate athletes who mislaid retired to Thomas, the Education Department said. Penn besides agreed to nonstop a personalized apology missive to each of those swimmers.
It wasn't instantly wide whether Thomas would beryllium stripped of her awards and honors astatine Penn.
The assemblage indispensable besides denote that it "will not let males to vie successful pistillate diversion programs" and it indispensable follow "biology-based" definitions of antheral and female, the section said.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon called it a triumph for women and girls.
"The Department commends UPenn for rectifying its past harms against women and girls, and we volition proceed to combat relentlessly to reconstruct Title IX's due exertion and enforce it to the fullest grade of the law," McMahon said successful a statement.
The Education Department opened its probe successful February and concluded successful April that Penn had violated Title IX, a 1972 instrumentality forbidding enactment favoritism successful education. Such findings person astir ever been resolved done voluntary agreements. If Penn had fought the finding, the section could person moved to notation the lawsuit to the Justice Department oregon pursued a abstracted process to chopped the school's national funding.
In February, the Education Department asked the NCAA and the National Federation of State High School Associations, oregon NFSHSA, to reconstruct titles, awards and records it says person been "misappropriated by biologic males competing successful pistillate categories."
The astir evident people astatine the assemblage level was successful women's swimming, wherever Thomas won the nationalist rubric successful the 500-yard freestyle successful 2022.
The NCAA has updated its grounds books erstwhile recruiting and different violations person stripped titles from definite schools, but the organization, similar the NFSHSA, has not responded to the national government's request. Determining which events had a transgender jock participating years aboriginal would beryllium challenging.
