The University of Pennsylvania has reached a resolution agreement with the US Department of Education to address Title IX violations stemming from the school having allowed male swimmer Lia Thomas’s participation on the women’s swim team during the 2021–2022 NCAA season.
The agreement comes after a months-long investigation that found UPenn failed to protect the rights of its female athletes under federal law. The university will also issue a formal apology.
“Today’s agreement marks a long-overdue victory for fairness in women’s collegiate sports. By restoring titles to biological female athletes and implementing clear, biology-based eligibility standards, the Department of Education and UPenn have taken a vital step to protect the integrity of women’s athletics under Title IX,” said Alaska Rep. Jamie Allard, who has championed legislation to protect girls and women athletes in Alaska.
The Department of Education concluded that UPenn’s decision to allow Thomas, a man who had who previously competed on the university’s men’s team but who had taken female hormones as part of a transgender transition, to participate in women’s collegiate swimming events constituted a violation of Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in federally funded education programs.
As part of the resolution, UPenn will also ban transgender women from participating in women’s sports teams and will adopt biology-based definitions of male and female for athletic eligibility.
The agreement also mandates the university to restore all individual Division I swimming records and titles to the biological female athletes who were displaced by Thomas during the 2021–2022 season. This move effectively vacates Thomas’s wins and reassigns them to the runners-up.
“Great news! Lia Thomas won’t be able to compete in women’s category at the Olympics or any other elite competition. He has just lost his legal battle in Court of Arbitration for Sport ruling. This is a victory for women and girls everywhere!” wrote Riley Gaines, a former swimming competitor who was bested by Thomas in competition.
UPenn is required by the settlement to issue formal letters of apology to each affected female athlete. The letters will acknowledge that their athletic experiences were negatively impacted by the university’s prior policies, which the Department of Education found to be discriminatory under Title IX.
The controversy surrounding Thomas began when he became the first openly transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I championship in 2022. His participation drew national attention and sparked a backlash from several of his former teammates and other collegiate athletes, including Gaines, Paula Scanlan, Grace Estabrook, Margot Kaczorowski, and Ellen Holmquist. These athletes raised concerns about competitive fairness and privacy in shared locker rooms.
The resolution follows a February 2025 investigation triggered by legal complaints from former swimmers, as well as a broader review of UPenn’s compliance with federal civil rights law.
In March, shortly after Donald Trump became president again, his administration escalated pressure his alma mater by pausing $175 million in federal funding, a move that reportedly accelerated UPenn’s negotiations with federal officials.
The lawsuits filed by several former athletes remain ongoing. These cases seek additional remedies, including the formal revocation of awards granted to Thomas and broader accountability from the NCAA and the Ivy League.
This resolution represents one of the most significant federal interventions to date regarding transgender participation in collegiate sports and is being hailed by women’s advocacy groups as a major victory for women’s athletic rights.
Good! We’re finished with Democrat woke nonsense and mendacity.
My general understanding is that the individual involved has a p*n*s. That supposedly intelligent people bought into this irrational fantasy is beyond comprehension. The University of Pennsylvania, an “elite” (!?) institution, is a joke. Michelle Robinson Obama is a graduate.
Suzanne, in paragraph nine please correct “several of her former teammates” to “his”.
Thank goodness. The beginning of the end to this madness. Just because people like William “Lia” Thomas have become so mentally deluded to want to be a female does not mean that the rest of us have to play along. Simply because he could not accept who he was does not mean we have to accept who he wants to pretend to be. It would be so great to see Thomas bend the knee and present the medals that he wrongfully took from Riley Gaines on the winners’ podium.
Yay! A travesty has been corrected. But not without significant damage to women. I thought women’s rights movement was settled years ago! It’s sad we women still have to take up the fight!