Trump administration pauses $175M in funding to UPenn over trans athlete policy

The Trump administration is pausing $175 million in federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania over its transgender athlete policies, the White House announced Wednesday in a post on X.

The post said the Ivy League university’s policies are “forcing women to compete with men in sports” and ended with the Trump tagline, “Promises made, promises kept.”

A spokesperson for the University of Pennsylvania said it is aware of media reports about the suspension, but that the university has not received any official notification or details.

“It is important to note, however, that Penn has always followed NCAA and Ivy League policies regarding student participation on athletic teams,” the spokesperson said in an email. “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 White House announcement about Penn funding follows an executive order signed last month by President Donald Trump prohibiting transgender women and girls from competing in female sports.

The order, which referred to trans women as men, said having trans women and girls compete in women’s sports “is demeaning, unfair, and dangerous to women and girls, and denies women and girls the equal opportunity to participate and excel in competitive sports.”

The order also stated that “it is the policy of the United States to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy.”

Penn made national headlines in 2022 when a transgender student athlete, Lia Thomas, competed on the women’s swim team and went on to become the first transgender woman to win an NCAA swimming championship.

Thomas faced intense backlash, including repeated misgendering from conservative news outlets, some of which also posted pre-transition photos of her and used her deadname, meaning her legal name prior to transition.

Three former Penn swimmers filed a lawsuit last month that accuses the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, the Ivy League and the NCAA of violating Title IX, a civil rights law that prevents sex-based discrimination in education programs and activities that receive federal funding.

The Trump administration’s announcement Wednesday follows investigations it opened last month into the University of Pennsylvania over Thomas’ participation and San Jose State University over a player’s participation on the women’s volleyball team. The San Jose State student has never publicly commented on the controversy or confirmed that she is transgender.

A senior White House official told NBC News that the Trump administration paused the funds due to Thomas’ participation, referring to Thomas as male and condemning her access to the locker room. However, the official said the federal funding pause is not the result of the Title IX investigation launched by the Education Department and that the funds were paused by the departments of Defense and Health and Human Services.

The official described the funding pause as an “immediate proactive action to review discretionary funding streams to those universities.” The official did not clarify what the discretionary funding is for or why it was being paused if not due to an alleged Title IX violation.

Trump’s executive order barring trans girls and women from participating in women’s sports rolled back Biden administration guidance that required schools to allow trans students to access school sports teams and sex-segregated facilities that align with their gender identities. The order tasked the Education Department with investigating potential violations.

White House officials told reporters at the time that the administration also planned to work with sports governing bodies, including the International Olympic Committee, to ensure the guidance is followed in noneducational settings.

Last month, a judge allowed two trans students who filed a lawsuit against New Hampshire’s law prohibiting trans girls from playing on female sports teams to expand their challenge to also include Trump’s executive order.

In a speech on Wednesday, President Trump said his administration was putting every school receiving federal funding on notice that if they “let men take over women’s sports teams” they would “be investigated for violations of Title IX.”

A federal judge in New Hampshire ruled last fall that the two girls could try out for their high school soccer and tennis teams while their lawsuit proceeds.

“I love playing soccer and we had a great season last fall,” one of the plaintiffs, Parker Tirrell, who is in 10th grade, said in a statement last month. “I just want to go to school like other kids and keep playing the game I love.”

Chris Erchull, a senior staff attorney at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, one of the groups representing the teens, said the Trump administration’s executive orders targeting trans people “amount to a coordinated campaign to prevent transgender people from functioning in society.”

“The systematic targeting of transgender people across American institutions is chilling, but targeting young people in schools, denying them support and essential opportunities during their most vulnerable years, is especially cruel,” Erchull said in a statement last month. “School sports are an important part of education—something no child should be denied simply because of who they are. Our clients Parker and Iris simply want to go to school, learn, and play on teams with their peers.” 

In addition to his order pertaining to trans student athletes, Trump signed an order proclaiming that the government will recognize only two unchangeable sexes. He also signed orders barring trans people from serving openly in the military and restricting access to gender-affirming care for trans people younger than 19 nationwide. The last two orders have been temporarily blocked by courts.

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News: