HARRISBURG, Pa. — The Trump administration said Monday that the University of Pennsylvania violated laws guaranteeing women equal opportunities in athletics by letting a transgender swimmer compete on the school’s women’s team and into team facilities.

The administration’s statement does not name Lia Thomas, the transgender swimmer who last competed for the Ivy League school in Philadelphia in 2022 and was the first openly transgender athlete to win a Division I title that year — an award Thomas now faces losing.

But the investigation opened in February by the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights focused on Thomas, who became a leading symbol of transgender athletes and a prominent political target of Republicans and President Donald Trump.

The department said Penn violated a law barring sex discrimination in schools and colleges, called Title IX, by “denying women equal opportunities by permitting males to compete in women’s intercollegiate athletics and to occupy women-only intimate facilities.”

Penn had no immediate comment Monday, but Penn has said in the past that it always followed NCAA and Ivy League policies regarding student participation on athletic teams, both when Thomas swam and currently.

The department said Penn has 10 days to voluntarily resolve the violations or risk prosecution.

The department wants Penn to issue a statement saying that it will comply with Title IX; effectively strip Thomas of any awards or records in Division I swimming competitions; and apologize to each female swimmer “whose individual recognition is restored expressing an apology on behalf of the university for allowing her educational experience in athletics to be marred by sex discrimination.”

The Trump administration in March suspended approximately $175 million in federal funding for Penn over its decision to let Thomas compete, the White House has said. The Ivy League school’s federal money came from the Defense Department and the Department of Health and Human Services.

In 2022, the NCAA used a sport-by-sport approach to allowing transgender athletes to participate, deferring to an individual sport’s national governing organization, international federation or prior established International Olympic Committee criteria.

Thomas competed under those guidelines, which allowed female transgender swimmers who had completed one year of hormone replacement therapy to compete.

The NCAA changed its policy the day after Trump signed an executive order on Feb. 5 that was intended to ban transgender athletes from competing in girls and women’s sports. That ended its sport-by-sport practice in favor of a blanket policy that only allows athletes assigned female at birth to participate in women’s sports.

The Education Department also opened reviews of San Jose State University volleyball, Denver Public Schools, Portland Public Schools, Oregon School Activities Association and the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association.

It also sued the state of Maine to force it to ban transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports or face prosecution.

Columbia University students, faculty, staff and alumni launched a “speak out” Monday to criticize school leaders for bowing to the Trump administration’s demands after it pulled $400 million in federal funding from the campus.

Hundreds of students, faculty, staff and alumni were expected to take part in the 25-hour event that organizers said was intended to amplify a growing position within the Columbia community that the school administration had caved-in to Washington and that the school’s academic freedom was under attack.

The administration has paused billions of dollars in federal grants and research funding at universities nationwide to target what it describes as a failure to deal with antisemitism and its handling of protests against Israel’s military action in the Gaza Strip.

“All of us have dedicated our lives to both a continual process of learning but also educating,” Brooke West, a professor of social work at Columbia said, as dozens of students walked by. “But how can we do that when our students, when our institutions and academic freedom and free speech are under attack?”

Columbia was the first university the administration targeted, and it conceded to several requests, including adjusting its admissions process and implementing “greater institutional neutrality.”

White House spokesman Harry Fields said Monday that some universities failed to protect Jewish students and violated the law.

“Universities’ violation of federal law, due to their blatant reluctance to protect Jewish students and defend civil rights, is unbecoming of institutions seeking billions in taxpayer funds,” Fields wrote in an email. “The Trump Administration remains committed to reforming higher education and combating anti-Semitism.”

The Trump administration told the university last month that it would reinstate the school’s federal funding if it met certain demands, including banning masks on campus and holding disciplinary hearings for student protesters

Students and faculty said they had some demands of their own for the university: fight back against federal attacks; protect and defend students and international scholars; re-establish diversity policies; and protect researchers.

Professors at the rally hoisted signs reading, “Columbia Fight Back,” “Defend Freedom of Speech” and “Protect our Students.”

Authorities have apprehended at least three Columbia students in recent weeks, including graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, who was involved in student protests last year.

ELIZABETH CITY, N.C. — A shooting at a small college in eastern North Carolina left one person dead and six others wounded and prompted a campus lockdown early Sunday, the university said.

The shooting occurred in the center of Elizabeth City State University’s campus following Yard Fest, the final event of the historically Black university’s weeklong Viking Fest celebration, the school said in a statement.

A 24-year-old man who was not a student was pronounced dead. His identity wasn’t immediately released pending notification of his family, the statement said.

Four people sustained gunshot wounds, including three students, while two other students were injured during the commotion. None of the injuries were considered life-threatening. All the injured were taken to a hospital for treatment, the statement says.

A call to campus police was referred to a university spokesperson, who didn’t immediately return a telephone message.

“The university is deeply saddened by this senseless act,” the university said in an earlier statement.

The lockdown was later lifted, and the university increased patrols across campus as a precaution. Access to the center of campus remained restricted later Sunday.

The university has 2,300 students and is about 50 miles south of Norfolk, Virginia.