Wagner College, a small, private liberal arts college on Staten Island in New York has agreed to comply with the Trump administration\u2019s restrictions on transgender student-athletes following a federal investigation that stemmed from an incident at a women\u2019s fencing competition in March, the Education Department announced Friday. <\/p>\n
The department\u2019s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) launched an investigation<\/a> into Wagner after USA Fencing officials disqualified a woman from a tournament at the University of Maryland on March 30. Stephanie Turner, 31, had refused to compete against Red Sullivan, a 19-year-old Wagner student, taking a knee to protest Sullivan\u2019s participation in violation of the competition\u2019s rules. <\/p>\n A video of Turner\u2019s disqualification quickly went viral, amplified by conservative activists, political figures and Fox News<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cThis is heroic on her part,\u201d Rep. Mike Lee (R-Utah) wrote in a post on social platform X<\/a>, responding to a video of the exchange posted by Riley Gaines, a frequent critic of transgender women in women\u2019s sports. <\/p>\n In May, the House Oversight Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency held a hearing on the incident and invited Turner to testify. <\/p>\n Participation in the University of Maryland\u2019s Cherry Blossom Open, hosted annually during springtime, is not limited to college students, according to the school\u2019s fencing club<\/a>, of which Turner, who now lives in suburban Philadelphia, is a former member. <\/p>\n Sullivan, a sophomore at Wagner, entered the competition individually. She had competed for the college\u2019s women\u2019s fencing team until February, when the NCAA said it would comply<\/a> with President Trump\u2019s executive order to ban transgender student-athletes<\/a> from girls\u2019 and women\u2019s sports. <\/p>\n In an interview with Rolling Stone<\/a> in April, Sullivan said the exchange with Turner left her bewildered. \u201cNothing close to this has ever happened. No one has ever had a problem with me fencing in a women\u2019s event,\u201d said Sullivan, who became medically eligible for women\u2019s tournaments last year. <\/p>\n USA Fencing, the sport\u2019s governing body, announced in July<\/a> that it would amend its transgender and nonbinary participation policy to align with a new U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee policy barring transgender women<\/a> from competing in Olympic women\u2019s sports. <\/p>\n As part of its deal with the Trump administration, Wagner will formally amend its athletic policies to reflect \u201cbiology-based\u201d definitions of the words \u201cmale\u201d and \u201cfemale,\u201d consistent with an executive order<\/a> Trump signed on his first day back in office proclaiming that the U.S. recognizes only two unchangeable sexes. <\/p>\n The college will also issue a public statement pledging to comply with Title IX, the federal civil rights law against sex discrimination in schools that the Trump administration has said prohibits transgender students from competing in girls\u2019 and women\u2019s sports. <\/p>\n The University of Pennsylvania, Trump\u2019s alma mater, agreed to a nearly identical resolution<\/a> in July. <\/p>\n