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A federal judge is considering Harvard’s request to be dismissed from a lawsuit filed by three former University of Pennsylvania swimmers alleging it violated Title IX regulations by allowing a transgender swimmer to compete in the 2022 Ivy League Swimming and Diving Championships.
The judge, William G. Young ’62, dismissed the swimmers’ claims against the Ivy League Council of Presidents but hesitated to dismiss the claims against Harvard outright. Instead, he decided to take the matter under advisement, leaving the door open for Harvard to eke out an early exit from the lawsuit.
The suit was launched in early February and accused Harvard of breaking federal nondiscrimination law by allowing transgender swimmer Lia Thomas to compete in the women’s championship hosted at Harvard. It also named Penn and the National Collegiate Athletic Association as defendants.
The suit also alleges that Harvard violated Title IX by failing to provide sex-separated locker rooms where cisgender female athletes could change separately from transgender teammates and competitors.
The University filed its motion to dismiss in April, saying that it had followed NCAA and Title IX standards at the time.
Though lawyers representing all four defendants were present at the dismissal hearing, Judge William G. Young ’62 singled out Harvard and the Ivy League, questioning lawyers representing the swimmers on why the two entities had been named in the suit.
Attorneys for the swimmers argued that since Harvard was hosting the tournament, “they knew that a man was going to be in the locker rooms” and the pool, and thus had a responsibility to uphold Title IX rules and bar Thomas from competition.
The University claimed that it “did not make decisions about eligibility” regarding Thomas since it was following NCAA policy, which until February permitted transgender athletes to compete on women’s teams if their testosterone levels were below a limit set within each sport.
On the issue of the locker rooms, two of the swimmers who were at the championship argued in their original suit that they avoided the locker room to prevent using it while Thomas was inside. However, lawyers for Harvard argued that because the swimmers never actually used the locker room, they couldn’t claim that they were harmed — and that any alternative would’ve been a Title IX violation instead.
“It would be a violation of Title IX to ask Thomas to use a separate locker room,” Anton Metlitsky, one of the lawyers for Harvard, argued.
Meanwhile, lawyers for the Ivy League argued that the organization should be dismissed because it is an unincorporated entity that does not receive federal funds and thus is not subject to Title IX.
Ultimately, Young agreed to dismiss the Ivy League from the case. He will decide on Harvard’s continued involvement in the case in the coming weeks.
If Harvard was removed from the suit, Young said, the remaining case against Penn and the NCAA would be paused until Gaines v. NCAA — another Title IX case around the NCAA’s former eligibility policies for transgender athletes, filed by University of Kentucky swimmer and anti-trans activist Riley Gaines — is decided in Georgia’s federal district court.
But if Young decides that Harvard will not be dismissed from the case, the suit will continue to progress on its own.
Harvard’s lawyers agreed to the conditional pausing of the case, but also said that they, “of course,” think they should be dismissed from it. Young said that if the claims against Harvard are not dismissed, he would entertain further oral arguments in the case.
Young had previously denied a request by Harvard and the other defendants for additional time — 20 minutes, rather than 10 — to present oral arguments on Monday.
—Staff writer Akshaya Ravi can be reached at akshaya.ravi@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @akshayaravi22.
—Staff writer Laurel M. Shugart can be reached at laurel.shugart@thecrimson.com. Follow them on X @laurelmshugart.
