With the agreement, the Trump administration will lift the freeze on millions of federal funding for schools, said Madison Biederman, a spokesman for the Department of Education.
“Trump administrators will put their knees on their knees.”
It was Chalon on the screen of Fox News on July 1 as conservative host Laura Ingraham applauded for State Education Secretary Linda McMahon and anti-transgender activist Riley Gaines.
The trio was celebrating a controversial announcement made earlier in the day by the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League school in Philadelphia. As part of the contract, the university sent an apology letter to a female swimmer who competed with former transgender student Leah Thomas, who won a national title while competing in 2022.
In 2022, trans rights advocates celebrated a historic moment. Many conservatives criticize Thomas’ victory and claim that he has an unfair competitive advantage.
Penn said this week that it would ban trans athletes from participating in women’s sports. However, the change was ineffective immediately as Penn had no trans female athletes. Following an order by President Donald Trump that such participation is illegal, the National Athletics Association colleges have not allowed student-athletes who are not assigned women at birth to compete in women’s sports.
In exchange for Penn’s concessions, the Trump administration has taken a step that has rarely been taken since the government began targeting elite universities. It unlocked a million-dollar chunks of Penn’s federal funds that had been frozen for months.
Some have condemned the agreement as another political attack on higher education. Others welcomed it as a victory for female athletes.
The Education Secretary appears to see it as a blueprint for the university that it has determined that working with the Trump administration is in their best interest.
“I hope that the agreement will be a template for other universities that will acknowledge that there is no room for men in women’s sports,” she said on Fox.
March: $175 million frozen
In March, the federal government suspends Penn’s nearly $175 million contract, claiming it violated Title IX, the main law governing sex discrimination in schools that allowed Thomas to compete.
It wasn’t long before the professor began taking orders for stopwork on a wide range of projects. Research into preventing infections in hospitals, drug screening for deadly viruses, and stopping from chemical warfare grounds has been suspended at the time, he said.
Penn’s president J. Larry Jameson said the effect quickly became harmful.
“Federal funding will be frozen, and cancellations will put life-saving and life-improvement research at risk. That loss will be felt by society and individuals well beyond our campus for the next few years,” he said in an official statement on March 25th.
The funds will start flowing again, according to Madison Biederman, a spokesman for the education department.
In a new statement on July 1, the university president called the issue “complicated” and said he was pleased to have reached a resolution with the government.
“Our commitment to ensuring an environment of respect and welcoming for all students is unwavering,” he said. “At the same time, we must comply with federal requirements, including executive orders and NCAA eligibility rules, so that teams and student-athletes can engage in competitive intercollegiate sports.”
“Negotiation” or “Fear tor”?
Some higher education leaders criticized Penn’s agreement as unnecessary surrender. Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors, called it “negotiations in the face of forced control.”
Penn sent a harmful message to trans students on campus, he said.
“At a meta level, universities cannot sell out trans people to meet the ideological demands of thugs,” he said.
Amanda Shanor, an associate professor at Wharton School, said students were split over whether Penn’s decision was correct. The day after the presentation, she felt a sense of “sadness and anger” among teachers like her.
“Would they leave their pens alone after this?” she said. “I don’t know.”
Zachary Schermele is an education reporter for USA Today. You can contact him by email at zschermele@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @Zachschermele and follow Bluesky at @Zachschermele.bsky.social.
