In the weeks since Penn announced its decision to settle a Title IX investigation by complying with federal demands, many faculty members have condemned the move, saying it undermines University values, betrays transgender students, and reflects capitulation under political pressure.
The University removed the individual records of 2022 College graduate and former Penn swimmer Lia Thomas, issued a public statement noting their adoption of "biology-based definitions of sex," and sent "letter[s] of apology to each impacted female swimmer," per demands from the Department of Education. The Daily Pennsylvanian spoke with members of Penn's faculty who criticized the decision — while several acknowledged the difficult situation the University faced.
A 'betrayal' for transgender students at Penn
Amy Hillier — a professor in the School of Social Policy & Practice and an LGBTQ research expert — criticized the University’s decision to settle with the Trump administration in an interview with the DP.
“Penn’s recent agreement with the Department of Education is more evidence that our institutions are failing us — all of us, especially trans people," she wrote. "We cannot count on the Supreme Court, U.S. Congress, or institutions of higher education like Penn to act with courage or integrity."
Similarly, Beans Velocci, an assistant professor of history and core faculty member of the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies department, emphasized the "moral reprehensibility" of Penn's decision, and said it spoke to an “ongoing betrayal of its trans students, staff, and faculty.”
Creative Writing Program Director Julia Bloch expressed a similar sentiment, adding that she was “furious” and “heartbroken” on behalf of transgender students.
“Discrimination on the basis of gender identity is harmful, illegal, and wrong — Penn is on the wrong side of history here,” Bloch wrote in a statement to the DP.
Director of the GSWS Program and Annenberg School for Communication professor Jessa Lingel also described Penn's “obedience” to the federal government in a statement to the DP. She explained that the University's compliance “goes way beyond trans athletes” as a “signal that trans people aren’t fully valued at Penn.”
Penn's compliance rendered "queer, trans, and intersex athletes" at Penn "scapegoats," according to visiting GSWS department scholar S.E. Eisterer and Weitzman School of Design Ph.D. candidate M.C. Overholt.
In a written statement to the DP, Eisterer and Overholt called Penn's decision part of a larger "ideological crusade, the true goal of which is not the empowerment of cisgender women, but the mobilization of hatred against already marginalized LGBTQIA+ communities."
"We are very concerned about what the fall will bring," Phil Gressman — the Communication Secretary for Penn's chapter of American Association of University Professors — said in an interview with the DP. "We would very much encourage the administration to listen to the demands of the workers at Penn who asked the administration to stand up for our community."
Gressman noted that trans athletes are made "less safe" when "the administration sells out students in this way."
"It increases the likelihood of harassment, discriminatory treatment in other forms," Gressman added. "It signals to others that the Penn administration is not going to defend our trans friends, students, staff members, colleagues, athletes ... community members."
The Executive Committee of AAUP-Penn broadly condemned the University’s chosen “path of political expediency at the expense of trans athletes” in a July 2 public statement following the announcement.
The faculty group's statement — which links to other AAUP statements and articles — characterized the University’s compliance as “a painful reminder that Penn’s administration will not adhere” to its diversity, equity, and inclusion commitments.
The Executive Committee emphasized that the University’s decision contradicts the collective action of “1100 workers at Penn [who] signed a petition demanding that Penn uphold research and counter funding cuts, affirm sanctuary and legal rights of immigrants, maintain commitments to DEIA, and stand up for equal treatment for LGBTQ+ members of our community.”
“Penn makes all trans students, faculty, staff, and community members less safe, exposing them to renewed and emboldened harassment and discriminatory treatment,” the statement continues.
The Executive Committee also referenced Penn’s “failure to commit” to its motto — which translates to “Laws Without Morals are Useless.”
A 'dangerous precedent'
Quoting Benjamin Franklin’s advice that “rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God,” Lingel wrote that “Penn had an opportunity here to be rebellious in the face of tyranny and opted instead for obedience.” She added that the move was a “huge disappointment.”
Eisterer and Overholt characterized Penn’s decision as a "grave mistake" that sends a “dangerous and authoritarian message” to student athletes who will be "alienate[d]" from their communities.
Hillier similarly emphasized that Penn should "internalize the lessons and fierce determination" of history's resisters and "use our many resources to fight for our civil liberties, justice, and truth."
Velocci wrote that Penn’s actions contradicted the work of top scholars across various fields who have denoted in multiple studies and scientific journals that sex "is not binary."
"This decision is a stark reminder of where Penn’s loyalties and investments lie: not with the pursuit of knowledge, not with standing up for the marginalized members of its community, not even with good sportsmanship, but with kissing the Trump ring for monetary gain," Velocci wrote. “Putting aside the real, material harm this policy decision is already doing at Penn and beyond, it is flatly embarrassing behavior from an academic institution that claims to be one of the most elite in the country, if not the world."
Eisterer and Overholt added that the University's statement included a "regressive conflation of sex and gender" and noted that Penn's "willingness to conform to such an unfounded and unscientific 'system of beliefs' represents an alarming slide backward and an affirmation of falsehoods."
Velocci agreed, pointing out that “sex is apparently defined according to the Trump administration’s absurd method, but only in the context of athletics.”
They additionally wrote that Penn had only “capitulated to a definition of sex” that humanities, scientific, and social scientific research "does not remotely support" because it was “financially expedient.”
History of Education professor Jonathan Zimmerman said that while the University's motivations for complying remain unknown, incoming students might feel as though “Penn doesn't actually stick up for the values it affirms — if what it believes in is free and untrammeled investigation.”
"That just seems — to me — unacceptable," he said. "Unacceptable for the Trump administration to do and threaten, and unacceptable for us to cave — both of those things."
Zimmerman similarly noted that Penn’s decision to apologize to the female swimmers on the team despite maintaining that it had complied with the law at the time reflected a "terrifying" and “deeply concerning” precedent.
"This was not the outcome of a debate. This was the outcome of a threat," Zimmerman said. “The federal government could hold us hostage and say that unless we mouth the words that they like, they are cutting us off. Even a policy that accords with the law, they can just say 'change what you do, change what you say, or we're cutting you off.'"
Gressman also expressed that “there’s no reason to believe that capitulating will be the end of the problems that a university faces, which is why it rings so hollow as a victory to restore this funding because there’s no indication that this is anything other than a temporary reprieve.”
An ‘impossible choice' for Penn
While Zimmerman urged the University to avoid similar concessions, he noted that much of the decision to settle was beyond the control of administrators, citing a "metaphorical gun" held to Penn's head by the Trump administration.
“Now we've made it clear — if they hold the gun to our head, we will comply," he added.
In a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian, Wharton Legal Studies and Business Ethics professor and constitutional law expert Amanda Shanor wrote that the Department of Education’s investigation into Penn “threatened the University with crushing punishment for following the law.”
When 2022 College graduate and transgender swimmer Lia Thomas competed on Penn’s women’s Swimming and Diving team, Shanor added, the University was “required to [allow her] by both the NCAA’s rules and the Department of Education under Title IX.”
She described the “strategy” of the Trump administration as to “ratchet the stakes so high that institutions fold to its will, regardless of how unlawful or unconstitutional its demands.”
University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School professor of law and philosophy Claire Finkelstein wrote in a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian that the agreement the University reached with the federal government “is a reasonable one in an environment that is becoming increasingly unreasonable for all institutions of higher learning.”
Finkelstein similarly noted that the federal government’s current scrutiny of higher education was unique to the Trump administration.
“While other administrations have used threats to the federal funding and tax-exempt status of universities to compel their compliance with particular policy objectives, the Trump administration has raised political pressure on universities to an entirely new level,” Finkelstein wrote.
“This puts university leaders to an impossible choice: do the President’s illegal bidding or lose perhaps billions of dollars, and in so doing devastate the lives that depend on that research,” Shanor wrote.
Since returning to office, President and 1968 Wharton graduate Donald Trump has launched attacks on higher education — including cutting research and grant funding, restricting student visas, investigating specific institutions, and issuing demands to Penn and its peer institutions.
Peer institutions — such as Harvard University — have been met with severe federal funding freezes after refusing to comply with demands from the Trump administration.
“If the government decimates major research institutions like Penn, it will cause crippling and long-lasting damage to the American economy, to its healthcare, to its international competitiveness, and to the arc of human knowledge,” Shanor wrote.
"Sometimes hard choices are choices that we're still called to make," Gressman said.
History professor and Penn's Faculty Senate Chair Kathleen Brown also noted the impacts of the federal government's "policing" of universities in a written statement to the DP.
Brown wrote from the perspective of "a scholar hired by Penn in 1996 to teach the history of gender and sexuality," noting that she "was not part of the negotiations with the federal government" and, as a result, could not speak from her role as faculty senate chair.
"I am struck by the irony of the federal government’s insistence on defining and policing categories it claims are natural," Brown wrote. "If the meanings of male and female are indeed clearly bounded and determined by nature, why would any government need to issue threats to achieve compliance? Wouldn’t compliance be . . . natural?”
“On the question of transgender athletes, as in other areas, Penn’s best course is to follow clear federal law, such as Title IX, whenever possible, and to seek interpretive guidance on that law from relevant professional standards, such as applicable athletic rules and community standards,” Finkelstein wrote. “That is what Penn has done in entering into this agreement.”
Despite reiterating the difficulty of Penn's decision, Gressman told the DP that AAUP-Penn hopes the University will "stand up for the community in the future."
Shanor also described her desire for "Penn and other institutions like it [to] stand up before it is too late for all of us."
Zimmerman echoed Gressman and Shanor's statements, adding that "[his] hope is that this is the last concession" from Penn.
"My fear is that it won't be."
Senior reporter Isha Chitirala contributed reporting to this story.
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