On April 28, the Department of Education found Penn in violation of Title IX and gave the University 10 days to “voluntarily” respond to a set of three demands. But as the May 8 deadline to respond approaches, Penn has stayed silent — even as a senior White House official warns that it could lose federal funding for failing to comply.
The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights accused Penn of violating Title IX because the University allowed 2022 College graduate and transgender swimmer Lia Thomas to compete for the Penn’s women’s swimming and diving team during the 2021-22 season. OCR subsequently made three demands — which Penn has yet to publicly acknowledge.
A University spokesperson did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
“The University of Pennsylvania was not in compliance with Title IX and they have ten days to do three things,” White House senior policy strategist May Mailman said in an appearance on Fox News. She went on to list the three demands: issue a statement affirming compliance with Title IX that “protects women,” restore accolades to “female athletes … misappropriated” by transgender athletes, and “apologize personally” to the affected athletes in individual letters.
“They have eight days left,” Mailman told Fox News on April 30. “We’re going to see what happens, and if they don’t comply, then they’re not entitled to federal funding.”
Mailman said that before 1972, when Title IX passed, “there were not a lot of sports opportunities for women.”
“Women couldn’t have certain majors, they had curfews — and then, in comes Title IX,” she said, adding that “Biden [took] them all away by basically inventing that Title IX means that men have access to women’s sports, women’s spaces, women’s locker rooms, women’s opportunities, women’s scholarships.”
On May 5, a White House spokesperson confirmed to The Daily Pennsylvanian that Mailman’s statement reflects the White House’s official position the deadline, adding they have nothing further to add.
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If Penn does not comply with the demands, the University risks referral to the Department of Justice for “enforcement proceedings,” according to the Education Department’s April 28 announcement.
The Education Department did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The Department of Justice declined to comment.
On Feb. 5, 1968 Wharton graduate and President Donald Trump signed an executive order that barred transgender athletes from women’s sports and promised to “rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities.”
The White House announced on March 19 that it would freeze more than $175 million in federal funding to Penn, citing the University’s alleged failure to bar transgender athletes from women’s sports.
While representing Penn women’s swimming and diving, Thomas collected multiple accolades on the conference and national stage — including an NCAA championship, two still-standing individual Ivy League records, three individual Ivy League titles, and three still-standing individual program records.
All of Thomas’ titles and records are at risk of being reallocated or eliminated from the record books following the Education Department’s announcement.
