The Trump administration on Wednesday suspending federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania, saying it would be around an approach to transgender athletes. The move will strengthen the government's campaign against transgender people's participation in public life and widen clashes with elite universities.
X's White House quick response account said the decision was based on Penn's “policy that forces women to compete with men in sports.” Those familiar with the decision that the administration spoke anonymously because it had not officially announced a suspension confirmed the suspension and cited the past embrace of transgender woman Leah Thomas as a member of the women's swimming team.
In a statement, Penn said he was “aware of media reports suggesting a $175 million suspension of federal funds to Penn,” but he said he had never “received an official notice or details” from the government. The university added that it may be fully compliant with regulations that apply not only to Penn, but also to all peer institutions in the NCAA and Ivy League, and that remains as is.
President Trump's alma mater, Penn, is his second Ivy League university in two weeks. On March 7, the administration announced it had suspended approximately $400 million in contracts and grants involving Columbia University. Last week, US officials sent Columbia a list of requests they said they needed to meet before negotiations on cancelled funds began.
More schools face federal inquiries, narrowing down the administration's broad efforts to reduce federal spending.
The administration's move against Penn, first reported by Fox Business, comes about three years after Thomas won the National College Athletics Association title in a 500-yard freestyle. Before her victory, more than a dozen members of Penn's swimming team complained in anonymous letters to the university and the Ivy League that Thomas had enjoyed “an unfair advantage over competition in the women's category.”
Thomas has admitted to being a talented athlete and a top Ivy League swimmer. However, they argued that her achievement in women's competition was “a feat she could not do as a male athlete.”
Thomas graduated shortly, and a decision from the international governing body of swimming prevented her from competing for spots for the US Olympic team. She could not be reached for comment Wednesday, and the lawyers who previously represented her did not respond to the message.
The blame for her Penn's career remains in part due to Trump's decision to make trans people's participation in the sport a signing cry during last year's campaign and when he returns to power.
In February, a day after three former Pence Wimmers sued the university and others over Thomas' participation, he issued an executive order declaring “the US policy to withdraw all funds from education programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities.”
The next day, the Ministry of Education said it would investigate whether Penn violated Title IX. The department's announcement cited Penn swimmer Paula Scanlan, who said “we were forced to compete and share the locker room with male athletes.”
The campus newspaper, the Daily Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, reported that Penn's athletics department had removed its website on diversity, equity and inclusion.
Trump's executive order also led the NCAA, which sponsors competition for more than half a million university athletes, and decided that trans women would be banned from competing at women's events.
Penn, like many other universities, had already put in courage for the financial storm. The university warns that threatened changes, including funding for the National Institutes of Health, could cost around $240 million a year. Penn said that if other federal agencies adopt similar formulas, tolls could rise to around $315 million a year.
The university said this month it has imposed a freeze on employment and average pay adjustments and has begun reviewing capital expenditures and faculty employment.
“The extent and pace of disruption we may face can be more severe than the scope of previous challenges, such as the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid pandemic,” Penn's senior executive vice president, Craig R. Carnaroli, wrote in an open letter announcing steps like employment.
Those familiar with the decision said Wednesday's cuts were not the result of a Ministry of Education's investigation into Penn, but rather “immediate and aggressive action to consider discretionary funding flows.” This suggests that more funding cuts could be in the future, beyond the expected losses this week from the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense.
The administration did not immediately elaborate on any particular Penn programmes that stand to lose funds. However, the cuts linked to medicine are a blow to universities that praise hospitals and labs. (Medical science is so essential to the university as a whole, so last week the trustee voted to name J. Larry Jameson, an endocrinologist who was previously Penn's dean, as Penn's president.)
Penn has given nearly $22 billion, with university officials saying they support about 20% of its operating budget. But replacing lost funds is not as easy as tapping on such a war chest. University officials across the country are studying the duration of their projects being taken without federal support.
Johns Hopkins University boasts about $13 billion in donations, but last week it said it would eliminate more than 2,000 jobs that were linked to federal money.
In Columbia, dozens of scientific research could soon be closed after the NIH moves to close more than 400 grants involving universities.
