Northeast
Former UPenn swimmer Paula Scanlan mocks university for donation request amid federal funding pause
Former University of Pennsylvania women’s swimmer and conservative influencer Paula Scanlan is never in a giving mood when it comes to her alma mater, but she was in a joking mood when the university coincidentally came asking for a donation on the same day the Trump administration paused $175 million in its federal funding.
Scanlan, who was one of the female UPenn swimmers forced to share a pool and locker room with transgender swimmer Lia Thomas in the 2021-22 season, told Fox News Digital she often gets requests from the university call center for donations.
By chance, she just so happened to get one on Wednesday, hours after the funding pause was announced.
“They always call me, and they call all alums… obviously, I’m not interested in donating any money. I don’t think I would ever even consider that until I am given an apology about being forced to undress in front of a man in the locker room three times a week.
“But, ironically, yesterday evening was one of the times they chose to call me to ask for a donation… they’re always calling me asking, always asking for money and [Wednesday] was one of the times they chose to do that, which I thought was really funny considering the announcement.”
Scanlan added that the last time she received a request from UPenn for a donation was in February via email.
“This is not a new thing, but I’m sure they’re pressing for cash and that’s definitely something they’re trying to do.”
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Paula Scanlan shares her story as a swimmer at UPenn competing against teammate Lia Thomas, the first transgender D-1 athlete to win a title. The “Take Back Title IX” bus tour made its first stop in Scranton, Pennsylvania, rallying against the participation of trans athletes in women’s sports. (Aimee Dilger)
However, Scanlan wants more than just an apology in order for her alma mater to ever have a chance at earning her donation.
“University of Pennsylvania has 150 plus unique things that you can major in, I think that we are looking at mass departments that are completely useless degrees. Students are taking out hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans to major in useless things like gender studies and I think that we need to see them get rid of that,” Scanlan said.
“This is not unique to the University of Pennsylvania and that’s something I would want to see before I’d ever consider donating, not just to my university, but any university across this country.”
Scanlan has been one of the most outspoken critics of UPenn for its decision to roster Thomas on the women’s team dating back to the trans athlete’s women’s debut season in 2021-22.
Scanlan offered anonymous insights to news reports about the emotional impact that Thomas’ presence on the team had on her and other teammates. Then in July 2023, Scanlan openly testified alongside Riley Gaines to members of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government.
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Paula Scanlan, former University of Pennsylvania swimmer, testifies during the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government hearing titled “The Dangers and Due Process Violations of ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ for Children,” in the Rayburn Building on Thursday, July 27, 2023. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Now, three years after the college swimming season that changed her life, she is seeing the institution that put her through that experience pay a hefty financial penalty.
Still, it is not as big of a price as she would like to see it pay.
“I think that it’s obviously a good thing, it’s a good message to send,” Scanlan said. “But it’s only going to make a small difference and I think what they’re probably going to do with the funding cut is probably fire a couple administrators, it’s not going to make overhead change to these departments, to the types of professors they’re hiring, to the ideology they’re teaching.
“I hope that we continue to see people crack down on these kind of campuses and I hope to see reform, but again, this is only a small first step.”
The news of the funding pause has prompted more celebratory responses from some of Scanlan’s former teammates, but they share her belief that further steps must be taken. Former UPenn swimmer Grace Estabrook told Fox News Digital she wants to see all of Thomas’ and other trans athletes’ records and accolades in the women’s category be revoked.
“I am grateful that the administration is recognizing federal violations and taking action, but we still need these institutions to be held fully accountable. This means clear policy changes, the prior records, awards, and recognitions to go back to the women who deserve them, and the institutions who facilitated sexual harassment and our suffering to be fully aware of the wrongs that they have done and the pain they have caused,” Estabrook said.
Estabrook is part of a lawsuit alongside her and Scanlan’s other former UPenn teammates, Margot Kaczorowski and Ellen Holmquist, seeking to have Thomas’ records scrubbed.
Kaczorowski and Holmquist provided a joint statement to Fox News Digital via the Independent Council for Women’s Sports praising the Trump administration for the funding pause as well.
Paula Scanlan, former University of Pennsylvania swimmer, testifies during the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution and Limited Government hearing on gender-affirming care for children. (Jasper Colt-USA TODAY)
“We are so glad that Universities are beginning to see that there is a cost to openly harming female students on their campuses and we hope the pressure only increases. Penn and other universities within the NCAA, under NCAA policy and their own rogue leadership, have violated federal law and hurt women,” the statement read.
“They have knowingly stolen opportunities and awards from women, placed women in physical danger, and facilitated the sexual harassment of female student athletes. Every woman on a college campus and under NCAA regulations should be assured of Title IX protections. Institutions that disregard the well-being of women have to understand they don’t get to rewrite or ignore federal protections that women rely on.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to UPenn for comment.
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When Americans think of the beverage that fueled the American Revolution, they usually picture black tea — but it turns out that green tea was just as popular.
The Founding Fathers and their contemporaries drank both types of tea, Bruce Richardson, the Kentucky-based founder of Elmwood Inn Fine Teas, told Fox News Digital.
British subjects “were as likely to be drinking green tea as black tea, whether you were in Jane Austen [era] England … or you were in colonial Boston,” he added.
“There were five teas, all from China, because that was the only country that was exporting tea,” Richardson said. “And of those five different teas, two of them were green and three of them were black.”
Richardson, a tea historian who works as the tea master at the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum, said the five types of tea dumped into Boston Harbor in protest of the Tea Act of 1773 included three black varieties — Bohea, Souchong and Congou — as well as the green teas Hyson and Singlo.
Bohea, the most common and least expensive black tea of the era, was often made from older tea leaves harvested after the highest-quality leaves of the season had already been picked.
Most of the tea dumped into Boston Harbor was Bohea, Richardson said — and it was so ubiquitous that he compared it to the way Kleenex has become synonymous with tissues today.
“It was so common that often teapots at the time, or some that I’ve seen, would say Bohea on the side of the teapot,” he said. “If they wanted tea, they’d say, ‘I’ll have a cup of Bohea.’ It was that common.”
Not only did colonial Americans distinguish between green and black tea, they even stored them differently.
“They still wanted their tea time, but they didn’t want to support the British government.”
“The well-to-do people would have a tea caddy – a wooden, beautifully made tea caddy to store their tea in,” he said.
“It was kept under lock and key. And in that tea caddy, [there] would be two compartments, one for green tea and one for black tea.”
Merchants often favored black tea because it held up better during the long voyage from China to Europe and onward to the American colonies, Richardson said.
“The green tea was what China had always drunk,” he said.
“And so they were exporting that as well, but they found that the black tea actually made the voyage better than the green teas.”
Even after many colonists swore off British tea, they kept the ritual of drinking it — or at least a close substitute.
Many patriots brewed so-called “Liberty Teas” made from ingredients such as dried apples, blueberries, chamomile and herbs grown in their gardens.
“They still wanted their tea time, but they didn’t want to support the British government,” Richardson said.
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