Fox Business News is reporting that the Trump Administration has put a hold on $175 million in federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania, in part to the institution’s handling of the Lia Thomas swimming case.

BREAKING: The Trump Administration has “paused $175 million in federal funding from the University of Pennsylvania” over its policies forcing women to compete with men in sports.

Promises made, promises kept. pic.twitter.com/o4yiiqtH9d

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 19, 2025

According to the above tweet, Wednesday’s decision is a result of Penn’s “policies forcing women to compete with men in sports.” The funding pause follows a Feb. 5 executive order signed by Trump threatening to remove federal funding from universities that allow the participation of biological men in women’s sports.

“This is just a taste of what could be coming down the pipe for Penn,” one senior Trump administration official told Fox News.

Penn is already reeling from the United States Department of Education investigation into Title IX violations when the institution permitted transgender swimmer Lia Thomas to represent the Quakers during the 2021-22 season.

Three former Penn women’s swimmers who competed with Thomas during that campaign have also filed a separate lawsuit against the school and the Ivy League.

The announcement from the White House comes a month after President Donald Trump signed the “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order to “take all appropriate action to affirmatively protect all-female athletic opportunities and all-female locker rooms and thereby provide the equal opportunity guaranteed by Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972.”

The order also prioritizes “Title IX enforcement actions against educational institutions (including athletic associations composed of or governed by such institutions) that deny female students an equal opportunity to participate in sports and athletic events by requiring them, in the women’s category, to compete with or against or to appear unclothed before males.”

The order also stated that “it 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. 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.”

Trump is a 1968 graduate of the Wharton School at the university.

“The decision by Trump to cut federal funding from Penn is yet another abuse of his executive power in service to his authoritarian agenda,” Rep. Rick Krajewski (D-Philadelphia), a 2013 graduate of Penn, told PoliticsPA. “I am proud of my alma mater for protecting the rights of its trans athletes and urge them to resist this bullying attempt.”

Updated with quote from Rep. Krajewski