In the latest development in a lawsuit brought against the college by transgender athlete and alumna Evie Parts ’25, Swarthmore has asked a federal judge to dismiss the case on grounds of legal precedent. The college cited the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that holds that states can bar trans female athletes from women’s and girls’ sports teams.
Swarthmore echoes the high court’s decision that excluding a transgender woman from competing on a women’s team does not violate Title IX, according to an Oct. 20 court filing.
Parts, a transgender woman and former student-athlete on the college’s track and cross-country running teams, first filed a complaint against the college in August 2025, alleging that Swarthmore had violated Title IX and Pennsylvania state law by following NCAA guidelines prohibiting transgender women from competition.
The runner was removed from Swarthmore’s varsity teams during the spring of her senior year, following the participation policy issued in February 2025. After her graduation, she sued Swarthmore, college officials, and the NCAA. Swarthmore requested the case to be dismissed last year, arguing that it was “not on notice” to provide Title IX protections for gender-identity due to unclear federal guidelines at the time. Title IX bans “sex-based discrimination” at institutions that receive federal funding.
The latest version of the complaint claims that the college engaged in a “campaign to coerce [Parts] into believing that there was no law in the state of Pennsylvania that protected against discrimination based on gender identity,” and cites Pennsylvania civil rights law.
However, Swarthmore argued in the October filing that a recent Supreme Court ruling lays the case to rest. In West Virginia v. B.P.J, the high court unanimously determined that Title IX permits schools and states to segregate athletic teams by biological sex and allows states to determine individual eligibility for women’s and girls’ sports.
“The Supreme Court’s holding — which made explicit reference to the Participation Policy — governs here and compels dismissal,” Swarthmore’s motion says. The filing also requests the dismissal of Parts’ statutory discrimination claims because Pennsylvania antidiscrimination protections look to federal law.
Additionally, the college argues in the filing that Parts “cannot plead that Swarthmore engaged in intentionally outrageous conduct nor the elements of a civil conspiracy.”
Vice President for Communications and Marketing Andy Hirsch said in a statement to The Phoenix that Swarthmore values its transgender community members and “offer[s] numerous resources to create a welcoming, supportive, and inclusive environment for transgender individuals.”
Hirsch reiterated Swarthmore’s motion that the Supreme Court “made clear that the NCAA’s policy does not violate Title IX.”
He continued, “Given that, and the fact that courts in the Commonwealth have routinely held that Pennsylvania law should follow and be consistent with federal law, we believe the case should be dismissed.”
Parts’s lawyer, Susie Cirilli said “We stand by every single allegation in the complaint.” “Transgender women have protection under the law,” she told The Phoenix.
Parts’s Time at Swarthmore
Parts joined Swarthmore’s cross country and track teams her freshman year. Following COVID restrictions and medical leave, she returned in 2023. Parts became captain her senior year, but in the last half of the year was suddenly removed from the team.
On Feb. 6, 2025, a day after President Trump signed the executive order entitled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” the NCAA issued its participation policy banning transgender women from competing on women’s teams. On Feb. 12, after alleged uncertainty from the college of whether she would be able to participate, Parts’s coaches told her that she had the choice to run for the men’s team or run unattached.
As a NCAA member school, Swarthmore is required to adhere to the policy if it wishes to continue participating in NCAA events and “was obligated to follow the Participation Policy so as to protect the opportunity for other members of the Women’s Track Team to compete,” according to the lawsuit. “Whatever one’s opinion of the Participation Policy, as a member of the NCAA Swarthmore was bound to follow it,” Swarthmore’s motion says.
Parts remained a member of the Women’s Track Team but was barred from representing Swarthmore in women’s athletic events for a portion of the Spring 2025 season, according to the lawsuit.
Parts chose to run unattached, meaning she could not wear a Swarthmore jersey. As an unattached runner, Parts had to provide her own food, medical care, and transportation, services provided to her teammates by Swarthmore College athletics. Additionally, she was prohibited from receiving coaching from Swarthmore athletics staff. The new arrangement took a severe toll on Parts’s mental health, leading her to self-harm and contemplate suicide.
To support Parts, her teammates embraced an initiative called “Evie’s Track Club” to raise money and support her running unattached.
The college reinstated her to the women’s team in April 2025, and she ran three races before graduation. Parts’s complaint notes that this allowance seems to act as “[an] apparent admission that its short-lived ban was illegal.”
On Aug. 14, 2025, Parts filed her first complaint, asserting three claims against the college: violation of Title IX, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and civil conspiracy under Pennsylvania law. The latter two claims were also filed against the NCAA.
Both Swarthmore and the NCAA filed motions to dismiss on Oct. 27, 2025. In response, Parts’s counsel filed an amended complaint, which added two counts of “aiding and abetting intentional infliction of emotional distress.” The college and the NCAA filed renewed motions to dismiss on Dec. 22, 2025.
Supreme Court Weighs Title IX
As the case unfolded over the past year, the Supreme Court was reviewing two cases to decide whether Title IX prohibits schools from banning transgender female students from competing on women’s sports teams. All parties agreed to pause the suit pending the high court’s decision.
On June 30, the Supreme Court decided West Virginia v. B.P.J. The plaintiffs, Becky Pepper-Jackson, “B.P.J.,” a high school student from West Virginia, and Lindsay Hecox, a college student in Idaho, challenged their respective state laws requiring that participation on sports teams for girls be based on “biological sex,” (defined as a person’s assigned sex at birth).
The case became a rally point for President Trump and many other Republicans to bar transgender women from women’s sports. Despite the issue gaining national attention, the number of trans athletes affected by a ban remains very low. In 2024, Charles Baker, President of the NCAA reported that there were fewer than ten trans athletes competing out of 510,000 students nationwide.
Federal courts in Pennsylvania have just begun to apply and interpret the milestone decision, and one of the most prominent decisions at stake is Parts’s case against the college.
Swarthmore’s motion to dismiss cites Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s majority opinion: “The question is whether Title IX permits schools to maintain women’s and girls’ sports teams for biological females. The answer is yes.”
Soon after the Supreme Court’s decision, the parties agreed that Parts could file another complaint. On Sept. 4, Parts’s counsel filed a second Amended Complaint, continuing to assert claims under Title IX, but also bringing claims under the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (PRHA) and the Pennsylvania Fair Educational Opportunities Act (PFEOA). The PRHA, the state’s anti-discrimination law, includes protection against sex and explicitly gender-identity based discrimination.
Since the Supreme Court’s ruling, other law centers have come out with dissenting interpretations. The Philadelphia-based Women’s Law Project and the Education Law Center have both published statements citing the PRHA as a means to protect transgender students from discrimination.
“Trans Pennsylvanians continue to be protected under the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (PRHA),” the Women’s Law Project wrote in a blog post. “That means that Pennsylvania still requires inclusion in sports.”
Swarthmore’s motion argues that Parts’s claims citing the PHRA and PFEOA fail because state protections should be interpreted “consistently with federal law.”
Parts’s attorney has until Nov. 20 to respond to Swarthmore’s motion.
