Following President Trump’s executive order on “Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports,” the Office for Civil Rights will investigate several universities for high-profile instances of men competing on women’s sports teams.
On Thursday, the Department of Education announced that the University of Pennsylvania and San Jose State University would be investigated for Title IX violations.
[RELATED: 2024: 5 times men forced themselves into women’s sports]
Former UPenn swimmer Lia Thomas, formerly known as Will Thomas, won an NCAA women’s swimming championship in 2022. This past season, San Jose State garnered controversy by allowing Blaire Fleming, a 6-foot-1 man formerly known as Brayden Fleming, to compete on its women’s volleyball team, which prompted multiple schools to forfeit matches.
In the Education Department’s press release, Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor stated that the Trump administration “will not tolerate the mistreatment of female athletes.”
”The previous administration trampled the rights of American women and girls—and ignored the indignities to which they were subjected in bathrooms and locker rooms—to promote a radical transgender ideology,” he said. “That regime ended on January 20, 2025.”
The Office for Civil Rights is also investigating the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association after a male athlete injured three female athlete’s during a girls’ high school basketball game last February.
In his Feb. 5 executive order, President Trump called out institutions that have allowed males to compete against female athletes, calling it “demeaning, unfair, and dangerous to women and girls.”
”[I]t is the policy of the United States to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy,” the order states. “It shall also be the policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports more broadly, as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.”
On Thursday, the NCAA changed its official policy on transgender-identifying athletes to accommodate the president’s executive order.
Last month, the House of Representatives passed the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act by a vote of 218-206.
This article was originally published at campusreform.org
