The Trump administration said Wednesday it would suspend about $175 million in federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania over its approach to transgender athletes, according to a White House social media account that trumpeted the pause. The move would intensify the government’s campaign against transgender people’s participation in public life and escalate a clash with elite colleges.
The White House’s rapid response account on X said the decision was based on Penn’s “policies forcing women to compete with men in sports.” A person familiar with the decision, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the administration had not formally announced the pause, confirmed the suspension and cited Penn’s past embrace of Lia Thomas, a transgender woman, as a member of its women’s swim team.
In a statement, Penn said it was “aware of media reports suggesting a suspension of $175 million in federal funding to Penn” but that it had not “received any official notification or any details” from the government. The university added that it had been, and remained, “in full compliance with the regulations that apply to not only Penn, but all of our N.C.A.A. and Ivy League peer institutions.”
Penn, President Trump’s alma mater, is the second Ivy League university in two weeks to be so explicitly targeted by the administration. The administration announced on March 7 that it was pausing about $400 million in contracts and grants involving Columbia University. Last week, U.S. officials sent Columbia a list of demands that they said needed to be met before negotiations about the canceled funding could begin.
Dozens more schools are facing federal inquiries and are being squeezed by the administration’s broad efforts to cut federal spending.
The administration’s move against Penn, which was first reported by Fox Business, came about three years after Ms. Thomas won the National Collegiate Athletic Association title in the 500-yard freestyle. Before her victory, more than a dozen members of Penn’s swim team complained, in an anonymous letter to the university and the Ivy League, that Ms. Thomas enjoyed “an unfair advantage over competition in the women’s category.”