Trump administration pauses $175m in funds to UPenn over trans athlete policy

The Trump administration has paused $175m in federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania over its inclusion of transgender athletes in women’s college sports, rightwing media reported.

Citing an unnamed “senior administration official”, Fox Business said the pause was “not a direct result” of a Title IX investigation into the University of Pennsylvania’s transgender athletes policy that was announced by the federal Department of Education in February.

That investigation came a day after Donald Trump signed an executive order entitled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports”.

Fox said the official called the funding pause “just a taste of what could be coming down the pipe for Penn, a proactive punishment from the president to pull back discretionary spending going to the school from” the US defense and health departments. It added that the university was “still at risk of losing all its federal funding as a result of the ongoing Title IX investigation”.

A University of Pennsylvania spokesperson said: “We are aware of media reports suggesting a suspension of $175m in federal funding to Penn, but have not yet received any official notification or any details.

“It is important to note, however, 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.”

The university has been in the spotlight over the case of Lia Thomas, who competed for the men’s swim team before transitioning, then in 2022 became the first transgender woman to win a major collegiate swimming title.

Last month, three former Penn swimmers filed a lawsuit seeking to nullify Thomas’s records.

According to the Daily Pennsylvanian, the Ivy League university’s student newspaper, the college received around $1bn in federal funding in 2024. The paper also reported that the college has implemented a hiring freeze and spending reviews, in anticipation of attacks by Trump.

Republicans in local, state and federal politics have seized on opposition to trans participation in girls and women’s sports, and attacks on transgender rights in general, as fruitful campaign issues. Polling has shown majorities of Americans in favor of birth gender dictating sports participation.

The Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBTQ+ advocacy group, said: “In truth, transgender students’ participation in sports has been a non-issue; many states, athletic organizations, and governing bodies successfully balanced fairness, inclusion, and access to play without any problem.

“Longstanding anti-equality activists manufactured a misinformed conversation about elite, adult athletes to justify passing extreme, discriminatory legislation.”

Trump, who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton business school, has made attacking elite college funding part of his broad assault on US establishment bodies.

Earlier this month, the administration cancelled $400m in funds to Columbia University in New York, alleging a failure to protect students from antisemitism around protests over Israel’s war in Gaza.

On Wednesday, Riley Gaines, who competed against Thomas and became a prominent rightwing campaigner, greeted reports of the funding suspension.

In a statement to Outkick, a Fox-owned sports site, Gaines said Trump had “taken swift action to uphold common sense and preserve women’s opportunities by pausing $175m in federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania”.