The University of Pennsylvania has done almost a complete turnaround on the women’s sports issue. On Tuesday, the entrenched Ivy League came to an agreement with the Department of Education. The DOE found the university in violation of Title IX back in April, so in order for the school not to lose its federal funding, UPenn is:
- no longer allowing any gender-confused males in women’s athletics
- issuing an apology to each of the women forced to swim with, share a locker room with, or share lodging with the male swimmer
- correcting its school swimming records and restoring female swimmers’ accolades
How exactly did UPenn violate Title IX? Back in 2022, “Lia” Thomas made headlines and sparked a big debate about males in female sports. Thomas became the poster child for all that is wrong with males being allowed to compete against women. Thomas was smashing female school records and forcing everyone to kowtow to his gender confusion, all while sharing a locker room with his female teammates. He even won a Division 1 title and took that accolade away from a deserving female swimmer.
The unfairness was obvious. Thomas was a modest swimmer as a male. But when swimming against the girls, he smashed records and tied Riley Gaines for fifth place at the NCAA Women’s Swimming Championships.
To anyone who mocks Riley Gaines for finishing 5th in the women’s league: Lia Thomas ranked 554th in the men’s league and needed to move to a league with people biologically designed to be weaker to become a champion. pic.twitter.com/HChSQ0l70H
— Patrick Ganley (@Patworx) June 7, 2025
Now, UPenn has corrected the record — Thomas was unfairly listed as breaking the school record in the 100, 200, and 500 freestyle events, and the women who rightly hold those records have been restored to their laurels. Here is where UPenn is skirting the line, though. Thomas is still listed as part of the team that set the school record in the 400-meter free relay, and the school added a note that Lia Thomas did break those records in the 2021-2022 season. Is this really in compliance with UPenn’s promise to the DOE and the women athletes it failed to support?
Education Secretary Linda McMahon issued a lecture against UPenn — which the university certainly deserved. She said:
Today’s resolution agreement with Penn is yet another example of the Trump effect in action. Thanks to the leadership of President Trump, UPenn has agreed both to apologize for its past Title IX violations and to ensure that women’s sports are protected at the University for future generations of female athletes. [We wanted] to make sure that it was emphasized that this was wrong and the university didn’t take the right kind of action and to apologize to these women for putting them in situations where they could have been hurt or where they would have lost opportunity or where they might have had their dignity impugned because they had to change in private spaces in front of males. … So I think an apology was absolutely warranted.
For Paula Scanlan, one of Thomas’s UPenn teammates — and one of the few to speak out publicly against him and her treatment by the school for objecting to his presence — the victory is bittersweet. As she posted on X, “It’s kind of ironic that some of the female athletes that are about to receive this ‘apology’ supported having a man on our team and bullied anyone that objected to it.” Scanlan was on the receiving end of a lot of that bullying.
This concession and apology by the University of Pennsylvania is a huge victory for women athletes everywhere. The fight, however, is not over. San Jose State University and its transgender volleyball player are one of the worst examples of intimidation and abuse of female athletes in collegiate sports. SJSU should be the DOE’s next target.
