A ‘signal that trans people aren’t fully valued’ at the school
Numerous University of Pennsylvania faculty are unhappy with the school’s settlement of a federal Title IX complaint which prevents men from competing on women’s sports teams.
UPenn agreed to the settlement early this month, which “restore[d] female athletes’ records and titles that were ‘misappropriated’ by male athletes” such as swimmer Lia Thomas (formerly William).
For Social Work Professor Amy Hillier, however, the university’s decision was “more evidence that our institutions are failing us […] especially trans people,” The Daily Pennsylvanian reports.
“We cannot count on the Supreme Court, U.S. Congress, or institutions of higher education like Penn to act with courage or integrity,” Hillier, who helped the university’s dental school battle “LGBTQ+-based biases,” added.
Beans Velocci, who researches “queer and feminist science and technology studies” and authored the book “Sex Isn’t Real: The Invention of an Incoherent Binary,” called the settlement an “ongoing betrayal of its trans students, staff, and faculty.”
They (Velocci uses “they/them” pronouns) added the settlement “contradicted the work of top scholars across various fields” who say sex is not binary.
UPenn Creative Writing Director Julia Bloch said she is “furious” and “heartbroken, and that UPenn is “on the wrong side of history.” The author of “Letters to Kelly Clarkson” added that “discrimination on the basis of gender identity is harmful, illegal, and wrong.”
Jessa Lingel (pictured), director of the Center for Research in Feminist, Queer, and Transgender Studies, alleged UPenn was “obedient” to the federal government and said the settlement was a “signal that trans people aren’t fully valued at Penn.”
MORE: Ed. Dept. urges NCAA to revoke titles held by Lia Thomas, other trans athletes
Lingel (who claimed Brett Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford was “calm, collected and believable” in her congressional testimony) quoted Ben Franklin’s “rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God,” noting UPenn “opted instead for obedience.”
S.E. Eisterer and M.C. Overholt, a UPenn visiting scholar and PhD candidate respectively, told the DP the settlement is part of an “ideological crusade, the true goal of which is not the empowerment of cisgender women, but the mobilization of hatred against already marginalized LGBTQIA+ communities.”
(Both scholars’ work is connected to architecture; Eisterer’s research deals with “spatial histories of dissidence, feminist, queer, and trans* theory” in the subject area, while Overholt’s dissertation “examines exchanges between architecture and sexual science in the 20th century” via a “queer and trans* theoretical lens.”)
History of Education professor Jonathan Zimmerman said that while the University’s motivations for complying remain unknown, incoming students might feel as though “Penn doesn’t actually stick up for the values it affirms — if what it believes in is free and untrammeled investigation.”
“That just seems — to me — unacceptable,” he said. “Unacceptable for the Trump administration to do and threaten, and unacceptable for us to cave — both of those things.”
Zimmerman similarly noted that Penn’s decision to apologize to the female swimmers on the team despite maintaining that it had complied with the law at the time reflected a “terrifying” and “deeply concerning” precedent.
Ironically, Zimmerman — who considers President Trump an “existential threat to democracy” — last year implored his fellow academics to “stop giving Americans more grounds to distrust us.”
MORE: Lia Thomas teammate reveals how Penn silenced dissent
IMAGE CAPTION & CREDIT: A professor shows his unhappiness; Aaron Amat/Shutterstock.com. INTERIOR IMAGE: U. Pennsylvania