The Trump administration has suspended $175 million in federal funding for the College of Pennsylvania, citing its athletics participation insurance policies for transgender college students, based on a Wednesday put up from a White Home social media account.
The cuts are to discretionary spending from the U.S. Division of Protection and the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Companies, based on Fox Enterprise, the primary to report the information.
“We’re conscious of media experiences suggesting a suspension of $175 million in federal funding to Penn, however haven’t but acquired any official notification or any particulars,” a Penn spokesperson mentioned through electronic mail Wednesday.
The spokesperson added, “We now have been up to now, and stay in the present day, in full compliance with the laws that apply to not solely Penn, however all of our NCAA and Ivy League peer establishments.”
In an government order final month, President Donald Trump barred schools and Okay-12 colleges from permitting transgender girls to play on sports activities groups that align with their gender identification and threatened to drag all federal funding from establishments that don’t comply.
The day after Trump signed the directive, the U.S. Division of Schooling opened a Title IX investigation into Penn, San José State College and a Okay-12 athletics affiliation over insurance policies the company mentioned had been out of step with the manager order.
Former Penn swimmer Lia Thomas, a transgender lady, has been on the heart of polarizing debates over gender identification and faculty athletics participation. In 2022, Thomas grew to become the primary brazenly transgender athlete to win a NCAA Division I championship for her victory within the girls’s 500-yard freestyle.
Final week, greater than a dozen faculty athletes sued the NCAA, alleging that permitting Thomas to compete within the championship violated Title IX, the sweeping statute barring sex-based discrimination in federally funded establishments.
The grievance comes solely a month after an identical lawsuit was filed in opposition to Penn and the NCAA over Thomas’ participation within the Ivy League’s 2022 swimming championship.
The NCAA up to date its insurance policies after Trump’s government order to solely enable college students assigned feminine at start to compete in girls’s athletics.
