Harvard Moves To Dismiss Title IX Lawsuit Over Trans Athlete Participation

Harvard moved on Monday to dismiss a Title IX lawsuit alleging that the University violated the law by allowing transgender swimmer Lia Thomas to compete in the 2022 Ivy League Swimming and Diving Championships.

The original lawsuit, filed in February by three University of Pennsylvania swimmers, named Harvard — which hosted the tournament — the University of Pennsylvania, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, and the Ivy League as its defendants.

The three swimmers who brought the suit — Grace Estabrook, Ellen Holmquist, and Margot Kaczorowski — claimed that Harvard violated Title IX policies by allowing Thomas, a transgender female athlete at Penn, to compete in the tournament, and by not providing a “unisex bathroom or separate bathroom for Thomas to use or for any other women to use who did not want to use the Women’s Locker room while Thomas was using it.” In its Monday motion, Harvard argued that they lacked standing to sue.

The motion contended that Harvard should not be named a defendant in the lawsuit as it was following NCAA policies and Title IX regulations at the time. Under these regulations, Thomas would have been allowed to participate in the women’s division and use the women’s locker room.

“Harvard had no say in Thomas’s eligibility or participation and therefore could not have caused the alleged injuries underlying the eligibility claims,” the motion stated.

“It would be unreasonable to expect Harvard to know that the mere act of hosting a tournament, governed by eligibility rules conceived of and enforced by a separate entity, and attended by participants whom Harvard did not select, would subject Harvard to damages liability under Title IX pursuant to a novel legal theory,” the motion added.

The University also claimed that Estabrook and Kaczorowski did not suffer any concrete injury from Harvard’s locker room policies. Both stated in the original suit that they did not use the locker room at the same time as Thomas. Kaczorowski, who chose to avoid the locker room while Thomas used it, did not state how she was harmed by that choice, Harvard’s lawyers wrote.

Thomas graduated from Penn in 2022, after winning three individual events at the Ivy League Championship that year. At the time, her victory sparked backlash over whether transgender women should be allowed to compete in women’s sports — including a lawsuit from 16 athletes who sued the NCAA over its policies on trasngender athletes.

Just one day after President Donald Trump signed a February executive order banning transgender women from women’s sports at the school and collegiate levels, Harvard Athletics removed its Transgender Inclusion Policy from its website. The policy previously stated that Harvard Athletics was committed to creating “a space that is welcoming and inclusive to all identities; including but not limited to gender, gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation.”

The motion to dismiss described the plaintiff’s claims that Harvard’s interpretation of a non-discrimination statement violated Title IX as “confounding,” given the plaintiffs “do not even purport to be injured by the reading of the statement.”

“Harvard had every reason to believe not only that it was not violating Title IX, but that it was doing what that law required of it,” the University’s motion to dismiss stated.

The swimmers also argued that Harvard violated Title IX regulations by working with the Ivy League to ensure Thomas received increased media attention and by making statements that acknowledged her success.

Harvard wrote in its motion to dismiss that the plaintiffs failed to provide reasonable evidence as to how Thomas’s media presence was “detrimental” to them.

The defendants added that it is “common for institutions to discuss particular athletes with the media to the exclusion of others, and there is no basis for a claim that it is somehow a Title IX violation to do so.”

In the slew of documents submitted on Monday, both Penn and the Ivy League also filed motions to dismiss claims against them.

In its motion, Penn claimed that its actions were in accordance with NCAA policies in allowing Thomas to participate in the Ivy League Championships.

“Any suggestion that allowing one transgender woman to use the women’s locker room (or one transgender man to use the men’s locker room, which was also permitted) somehow violates this factor, or amounts to an equal treatment claim, is specious,” Penn’s motion stated.

The Ivy League argued that the plaintiffs did not provide grounds for discrimination and that Title IX regulations do not apply in their case, given that the leagues receive no federal funding.

—Staff writer Elyse C. Goncalves can be reached at elyse.goncalves@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @e1ysegoncalves.

—Staff writer Akshaya Ravi can be reached at akshaya.ravi@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @akshayaravi22.