Washington – The University of Pennsylvania changed a trio of school records established by the transgender swimmer Lia Thomas on Tuesday and said she would apologize to the “disadvantaged” women’s athletes by her participation in the female swimming team, part of a resolution of a federal case of civil rights.
The American education department and Penn announced the voluntary agreement of the highly publicized case which focused on Thomas, which competed for the last École de la Ivy League in 2022, when it became the first openly transgender athlete to win a Division I title of NCAA.
The department investigated Penn in the broader attempt of the Trump administration to withdraw the transgender athletes from the sports of girls and women, concluding that the University of Philadelphia had violated the rights of female athletes.
Under the agreement, Penn agreed to restore all the individual files and titles of division I to the female athletes who lost against Thomas and send a letter of personalized apology to each of these swimmers, said the education department.
Tuesday afternoon, the Penn website showed that other athletes holding the best times in the school in Thomas’ events. The site was annotated with a note that said: “Competition in the eligibility rules in force at the time, Lia Thomas established program records at 100, 200 and 500 freestyle during the 2021-222 season”.
“While Penn’s policies during the 2021-2022 swimming season complied with the NCAA eligibility rules at the time, we recognize that some student-athletes were disadvantaged by these rules,” said Penn president J. Larry Jameson. “We recognize this and we will excuse those who have experienced competitive disadvantage or anxiety experienced due to the policies in force at the time.”
As part of the regulations, the University must also announce that it “will not allow men to participate in female sports programs” and that it must adopt definitions “based on biology” of man and women, said the department.
In his declaration, Jameson said that Penn has always been in accordance with the rules of the NCAA and the title IX as they were interpreted at the time, and that the university never had its own policies concerning the participation of transgender athletes. The school has followed the changes in eligibility directives because they were published earlier this year, he said. NCAA has changed its participation policy for transgender athletes in February, which limits competition in female sports to athletes who were assigned to a woman at birth.
“Our commitment to ensure an respectful and welcoming environment for all our students is unshakable,” said Jameson. “At the same time, we must respect the federal requirements, including the decrees and the eligibility rules of the NCAA, so that our teams and student-athletes can engage in competitive intercollegial sports.”
Educational secretary Linda McMahon described this as victory for women and girls.
“The department congratulates Upenn for having rectified its prejudices passed against women and girls, and we will continue to fight tirelessly to restore the appropriate request for title IX and apply it to the full extent of the law,” said McMahon in a press release.
The former swimmer of the University of Kentucky, Riley Gaines, thanked President Donald Trump on social networks and wrote on the regulations: “Do the pigs fly?” Gaines said that she had started her activism against the transgender athletes who participate in female sports after sharing a wardrobe with Thomas at the NCAA 2022 championships.
The Department of Education opened its investigation in February and concluded in April that Penn had violated title IX, a 1972 law prohibiting sexual discrimination in education. These results have almost always been resolved thanks to voluntary agreements. If Penn had fought the conclusion, the ministry could have moved to refer the case to the Ministry of Justice or continue a separate process to reduce federal funding of the school.
In February, the Department of Education asked the NCAA and the National Federation of State Lycée associations, or NFSHSA, to restore titles, awards and files which, according to them, were “diverted by biological men in competition in female categories”.
The most obvious objective at the college level was the swimming of women, where Thomas won the national title in the 500 -yarning free in 2022.
The NCAA has updated its records when recruitment and other violations have eliminated the titles of certain schools, but the organization, such as the NFSHSA, did not respond to the request of the federal government and did not respond to emails asking for comments on Tuesday. It was not clear how or no more events had a transgender athlete participating for years later.
