There will come a time, when sanity and civility are restored and science is once again respected, when we will look back on this period in shame.
Future generations will ask how we responded to blatant wrongdoing and acts of cruelty, whether we had the courage to stand up for what’s right or caved out of naked self-interest.
The leaders at Penn answered that question definitely on Tuesday. They might think their willingness to sacrifice swimmer Lia Thomas will protect them from President Donald Trump’s wrath, but they will soon learn that appeasement never works. Not with this administration or any other that has tried to impose its unlawful will.
Worse, by punishing a young woman who hasn’t been a student for three years and banning the transgender athletes the NCAA already doesn’t allow to compete, Penn put all women at risk by sanctioning the weaponization of Title IX.
“I remain dedicated to preserving and advancing the University’s vital and enduring mission,” Penn president J. Larry Jameson said in a statement. “We have now brought to a close an investigation that, if unresolved, could have had significant and lasting implications for the University of Pennsylvania.”
Translation: The Trump administration was going to go after us just like it did Columbia and Harvard, and we have neither the money nor the spine to fight that.
As if erasing Thomas’ school records isn’t enough, Jameson also said Penn would apologize to those who swam against her. No word on whether Penn is making participation trophies for them, too.
Penn’s actions and its promise it will adhere to ‘definitions of sex – with respect to women’s athletics – that have been set out through two specific Executive Orders,’ is akin to trying to rename the Gulf of Mexico. Doing so does not, will not, change basic facts.
Lia Thomas is still a person who swam competitively at Penn. Her best times were a 47.37 in the 100 free; a 1:41.93 in the 200 free; a 4:33.24 in the 500 free; a 9:35.96 in the 1,000 free; and a 15:59.71 in the 1,650 free.
There still has yet to be a study showing transgender women athletes — not cisgender men, transgender women — have a competitive advantage over cisgender women athletes. There still is not a pack of transgender women crowding cisgender women out of sport.
What was it NCAA president Charlie Baker told Congress last year? Oh right. That there are ‘less than 10’ transgender men and women out of the half-million-plus NCAA athletes.
This is about ignorance and fear and hate. And cowardice.
When Title IX was passed 53 years ago, it opened the doors to gymnasiums and playing fields for girls and women. It also took a sledgehammer to the misogynistic stereotypes of how a woman was supposed to look and act. Playing sports helped free us to be the people we knew ourselves to be, not what others expected us to be.
By kowtowing to the Trump administration, Penn puts that at risk. Today it’s transgender women. What happens if tomorrow it’s athletes with Black or brown skin? Or who have hair that’s too short or muscles that are too big? Or whose parents are immigrants? Will Penn say that’s a bridge too far? Or will it throw those women under the bus, too?
I think I know the answer.
Much is made out of public opinion polls showing the majority of Americans favor bans on transgender athletes. But go back and see what the country thought of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement in the early 1960s. Or gay marriage in the early 2000s. Attitudes evolve, opinions change and discrimination that was once deemed acceptable is eventually seen for the small-mindedness that it is.
Lia Thomas did nothing wrong. There is nothing wrong with her. What’s wrong is the shameful way we are treating people who simply want to be their true selves, and someday we will all be asked to answer for that.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.
