The White House announced today that the Trump Administration is freezing approximately $175 million of federal funding to Penn over the participation of Lia Thomas in the 2022 NCAA season.
BREAKING: The Trump Administration has “paused $175 million in federal funding from the University of Pennsylvania” over its policies forcing women to compete with men in sports.
Promises made, promises kept. pic.twitter.com/o4yiiqtH9d
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 19, 2025
The post stated that the funding freeze was due to “forcing women to compete with men in sports.” This comes after Trump signed an executive order banning transgender athletes from women’s sports last month.
In 2022, Lia Thomas began receiving national backlash as a result of her participation as a member of the women’s swimming and diving team at Penn, after competing for three years as a member of the men’s team. Thomas went on to earn three A-finals swims at the NCAA Championships, finishing 8th in the 100 free, 5th in the 200 free, and 1st in the 500 free.
At the time, Thomas was in compliance with the NCAA regulations on transgender competition, and Penn was following their guidelines. Penn spokesperson Ron Ozio addressed this funding freeze with ESPN, stating that the school has not received any notification of the action.
Ozio went on to state that “Penn has always followed NCAA and Ivy League policies regarding student participation on athletic teams. 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.”
Penn also became the subject of an investigation opened by the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights last month due to their potential “violation” by allowing Thomas’ participation. This investigation also includes San Jose State, and their transgender volleyball player.
The funding freeze is reportedly unrelated to the DOE investigation, and the funding was coming from the Defense Department and the Department of Health and Human Services.
In December, NCAA president Charlie Baker said that there were less than 10 transgender student athletes competing in the NCAA. It is unclear if any other schools that have facilitated transgender competition have been hit by the funding freeze.
Also today, the U.S. Department of Education found that Maine was in violation of the title IX laws, and they reportedly have 10 days to make changes or the case will be sent to the Department of Justice.
This comes after the Governor of Maine, Janet Mills, has refused to change their policies regarding transgender competition in light of the Executive Order, and Mills told President Trump that she would see him in court.
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Everyone talks about Lia Thomas, but everyone forgets what I think the bigger issue was at the time: Isaac Henig.
Isaac was on Yale’s swim team and also swam at women’s NCAAs. Isaac was born a biological female and was in the process of transitioning to male and identified as a male. Isaac qualified for the women’s NCAAs but was not fast enough for the men’s NCAAs. Therefore, he decided to swim at the women’s NCAAs. He wore a women’s suit during his races, but was seen in the warm-up pool wearing a men’s suit.
People arguing for Lia Thomas say, “She should be able to swim in the gender category that… Read more »
“I’m fine with Lia swimming where she identifies with, but why does Isaac get to essentially choose the gender category for the life event that suits him best at the time?”
Because we were still working out how this works. Hopefully we’ll still get to keep figuring it out, but might take a bit more time now
Edit – tho the other reason is you can’t be as hysterical about it
It is not or should not be about “identity.”
But Trump is wrong here. It’s retroactively punitive.
They never compete against the men, do they?
As an outsider, I’m amazed at the freak show that USA is performing.
No external power could ever damage USA
USA is being rapidly dismantled from within by their own people.
I won’t be surprised if I see the second civil war in the future
I don’t think a civil war will break out, but we’re not getting out of this very easily.
The people yearn for a new constitution
No we don’t. We just wish they’d follow the one we have.
The one we have is bad!
Hindsight is a great gift.
Did some activist go a bit too far with rather radical politics denying biology and not care about the impact on women their push for “inclusion” would have? Yes.
Was a big part of that annoying hoopla going so long due to those people misconstruing any criticism or disagreement in the most extreme ways possible, leaving everyone doing a tightrope walk for fear of getting “canceled”? Yes.
Were a bunch of degens foaming at the mouth about how such a scenario meant America was literally weimar, so they have a mandate do the fascism always the real problem? YES
It’s been like 2 months and I already can’t believe this man got elected.
In most places for basically the entire history of the world, if you try to overthrow the government and fail, you get *executed*
In the US, we let em be president again.
USA is the only western democracy that elected current convicted felon as a president, and whose tens of active law suits against him are rendered void because he’s elected as a president.
Well done, USA. You give so much exciting and interesting materials for future historians.
I’m not even being uppity, it’s not like Hungary is any better. Our prime minister/grand inquisitor just outlawed pride to “protect the children”.
But it is scary when the greatest power of the Western world is lead by that orange heap of flaming garbage.
Ya we’re really obviously the bad guys rn.
It was a bit harder to parse most of the time
“Greatest power of the Western world”? Let’s see if that statement still holds up 2 years from now.
Key word is “western.” While I think this will definitely put a dent in that lead, the gap between the US and the rest of the Western World is pretty significant, and countries like France and the UK don’t have the populations, natural resources, or political will to really catch the US that quickly. If it were going to happen it would be Brazil, but it would be a Brazil heavily supported by China.
Four years isn’t long enough to make the US not the “greatest power of the Western world.” It is more than enough time to be surpassed by the Eastern world.
Yep.
China is quickly catching up to the US, and in fact has surpassed USA in many areas
Funny no one has been charged with sedition, treason, and insurrection. CNN and MSNBC talking points are getting old.
I’ve never watched those networks, wouldn’t know.
Actually a bunch of people were charged, found guilty and sentenced to prison. Then they were pardoned.
It’s been a great two months!
While I agree with folks in general about not punishing for past acts that were allowed at the time, what Penn did and said to the other female swimmers at Penn might be construed as a denying of civil rights and censorship which are then and now against the law.
this was literally 3 years ago at this point…get over urself
This is crazy.
Congress is supposed to allocate the money. Presumably they enacted a law allocating funds for the defense department and department of health and human services for those organizations, in turn, to distribute as research grants. Having the president reach in and freeze the funds to win political points is a huge power grab and overreach.
Doesn’t matter what you think of Lia Thomas or the participation of trans women in sports. We’re watching our form of democratic governance fall apart in real time.
Anything but real change for real Americans