PHILADELPHIA — President Donald Trump’s administration has restored $175 million in federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania after it reached a deal on transgender athletes, a Department of Education spokesperson confirmed Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Penn said it had agreed to apologize to members of its women’s swim team who were “disadvantaged” by transgender swimmer Lia Thomas’ participation on the team in 2021-22 and remove Thomas’ records, giving them instead to swimmers who held the next best times.

The school also agreed to abide by IX — the civil rights law that prohibits sexual harassment and discrimination — “as interpreted by the Department of Education” in regard to athletics and specifically cite by name Trump’s executive order titled “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” and state that all its practices, policies and procedures in women’s athletics will comply with it.

Penn also repeated what it has previously said, that transgender women would not be permitted to compete on women’s teams, in line with the National Collegiate Athletic Association decision earlier this year to bar them.

The Trump administration had announced in March that it was pausing $175 million in federal funding because Thomas had competed on the women’s swim team. Trump campaigned on keeping transgender athletes out of women’s sports.

Penn did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the status of the funding.

For those at Penn who do research and teach in gender studies, word that their school struck an agreement with Trump’s administration on transgender athletes came as a “huge disappointment,” said one leader.

“Trans people at Penn and their allies are going to see this as a betrayal, and a ratcheting up of extreme politicization in higher ed.,” said Jessa Lingel, an associate professor of communication at Penn and director of the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Program.

“Penn had the opportunity to stand up for their institutional commitment to equal opportunity and open inquiry,“ said Lingel, who also is president of Penn’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, but was speaking in her role as director of gender studies. ”Instead they capitulated.”

Lingel works with and supports queer and trans members of the Penn community.

U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and other conservatives spent Tuesday trumpeting the deal as a huge victory for the Trump administration and women and girls. McMahon said Penn basically rolled over and complied with the department’s demands, and said she hopes the agreement her department struck with the school serves as a “template” for other universities.

“We were clear in telling UPenn that allowing men to claim they are women, so they can invade women’s locker rooms and compete against them in sports, was neither fair nor safe,” McMahon said. “So UPenn came back to the table and asked us what they can do to make it right. We said, ‘You have to completely rewrite your institutional policy.’ They signed on the dotted line.”

She said the department had frozen $175 million federal funds to Penn to illustrate “just how seriously” it took the issue.

Penn President J. Larry Jameson said in a message to the Penn community Tuesday that not resolving the matter could have had “lasting implications” for the school.

“Our commitment to ensuring a respectful and welcoming environment for all of our students is unwavering,” he said. “At the same time, we must comply with federal requirements, including executive orders, and NCAA eligibility rules, so our teams and student athletes may engage in competitive intercollegiate sports.”

The Trump administration in late April said Penn had violated federal civil rights law by allowing Thomas to compete during the 2021-22 season and use the female facilities. The department demanded the university apologize to affected female swimmers and restore accolades they would have won. It also issued other demands and gave Penn 10 days to respond — a deadline that passed nearly two months ago. The department said failure to comply would put the Ivy League university’s funding at risk.

Thomas’ participation on Penn’s team drew national attention and stirred debate over trans athletes’ right to play sports. Thomas became an Ivy League champion and broke records at the women’s swimming and diving championships held at Harvard in February 2022.

Thomas was the first transgender woman athlete to have competed at Penn; since then, there have been no others.

The lawyer representing Penn swimmers who are suing the school over Thomas’ participation and former Penn swimmer Paula Scanlan on Tuesday spoke in favor of the deal.

“I am deeply grateful to the Trump Administration for refusing to back down on protecting women and girls and restoring our rightful accolades,” Scanlan said in the department of education’s press release.

Several local politicians, however, were not supportive.

Philadelphia City Councilmembers Rue Landau and Jamie Gauthier and State Rep. Rick Krajewski, all Democrats, condemned what they called Penn’s decision to “surrender” to the Trump administration’s demands.

“We are deeply disappointed in the University of Pennsylvania’s decision to reward a politically motivated campaign that seeks to erase transgender athletes under the narrative of equity in sports,” they said. “This move is not about equity. It is about appeasing the Trump Administration. It is about deliberately targeting a vulnerable community for political points.”

Lingel said Penn would have been on firm ground to reject the department’s demands and note that it had been complying with NCAA policy at the time Thomas competed. The school did not have its own policy on trans athletes.

Penn’s decision, she said, is going to make queer and trans students feel “like second class citizens” at Penn.

“I think the real apology should be to LGBTQ students on campus who are going to feel like they’ve been used as a political football,” she said.

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