Mom of ex-Yale swimmers alleges athletic department 'terrorized' women, 'emasculated' men: 'Like North Korea'
EXCLUSIVE: The mother of three former Yale swimmers has come forward with alleged details of her children's experience at the school to Fox News Digital, after the Ivy League giant's athletic department saw a pair of unflattering document leaks in recent days.
Kim Jones, the mother of two former Yale women's swimmers and one former men's swimmer, said she had to witness her daughter and her son be forced to compete with transgender athletes of the opposite birth sex while at Yale.
Fox News Digital is not naming her children at her request, but has verified they competed at Yale during her provided timeframes.
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Her older daughter, who went to Yale from 2018-23, competed against infamous UPenn trans swimmer Lia Thomas during Thomas' reign in 2021-22, both in the regular season and in the Ivy League championship. Then she had to watch her son, who went to Yale from 2020-25, share a team and locker room with a biological female trans swimmer, Iszac Henig, who transitioned from the university's women's team to the men's in the 2022-23 season.
"I would say it felt like North Korea," Jones said of her children's experience at the time.
"I would say that the athletic department as a whole was a terrible place to be."
The experience of watching her older daughter face Thomas, and Yale's handling of those competitions against Thomas, caused internal strife and trauma for her family.
"They terrorized the girls … they pulled them into mandatory meetings. They intimidated, coerced, threatened, and emotionally blackmailed them," Jones alleged.
"They were told that they were going to be, that they were to be held accountable for any harm that came to folks in their communities that identified as transgender."
Jones said she doesn't believe the women impacted have even "realized" what they went through.
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"I think it's going to take even more time than what has passed for many of those young women to look back on this and realize just how coerced and abused they were during this," she said.
Jones said her daughter never had to share a locker room with Thomas. But her son did have to share one with Henig.
"It ruins the camaraderie. Of course, you’re going to change the way you speak, you’re going to change the way you act when you’re in a different environment with people of the opposite sex. The boys didn’t feel like they could go to the athletic department and say ’this is uncomfortable, we don’t want a woman in our locker rooms,'" Jones said.
Still, Jones said her son maintained all the same friendships with the other men on his team.
But the mother said the worst part of her son's alleged treatment from Yale was that it allegedly prevented him from standing up for the women who had to compete against Thomas.
"It is emasculating, it takes away their convictions to stand up for what’s right in front of their eyes, to speak up when they’re uncomfortable,"
"You can't stand up for women. You can't stand up for what's right, right in front of your eyes. And then an athletic director is coming down and squashing all, any and all dissension wanting to put anything under the rug."
The Jones family still sent its younger daughter to begin college at Yale in 2024, but she transferred just one year later in 2025.
Jones is currently the co-founder of the women's rights organization the Independent Council on Women's Sports (ICONS), known for financing Riley Gaines' lawsuit against the NCAA over the inclusion of Thomas and other trans athletes in women's sports.
Jones' son began his college career during the school's quarantine period amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
And as a mother, Jones still has the image in her head when he came home after his first semester.
"He looked like a skeleton, he had lost so much weight," Jones said.
She called the university's alleged handing of COVID "disastrous."
"He was a freshman and at the campus, he was confined to his dorm," Jones said. "They were delivering their food to them. There was no, the athletic department was not looking at their student athletes and saying ‘oh my gosh, you’re a bigger person, you need food.' Like, my son is 6'4."
Jones also lamented the university's vaccine requirements and alleged requirement for constant [nasal] swab COVID tests.
"It was incredibly oppressive," she said. "The oversight on mask-wearing and mandatory vaccines and constant getting tested, it was way worse than anything that was going on in the outside word."
During the fall 2020 semester, Yale University implemented stringent COVID-19 protocols to allow for a partial campus return, which included a phased, three-step, month-long quarantine process for students upon arrival, per The Yale Daily News.
Undergraduate students in residence and graduate/professional students in high-density housing were required to undergo twice-weekly asymptomatic testing. Strict social distancing measures were enforced, including limiting gatherings to 10 people and mandating face coverings.
Jones alleged that one day during Thomas' reign at UPenn, her older daughter came to her to warn her against a social media comment.
"I had written, ‘women deserve to be able to celebrate their incomparable physical limits’ or something like that," Jones said.
"My daughter said, ‘take that down. People are noticing, we are not supposed to say anything.’ And I said ‘I thought that was a pretty benign comment,’ you know? And she said to me like, ‘We were told our first priority above ourselves, above anything else, needs to be, to basically uphold… the position that the school and the league are taking.’"
Jones is not the first person previously connected to Yale to have spoken out about the athletic department's alleged intent to "silence dissent."
A letter signed by former Yale hockey coach Keith Allain addressed to Yale President Maurine McInnis, alleged that current Yale Athletic Director Victoria Chun has created a "toxic environment" for the university's sports teams. Fox News Digital published the letter on Monday after confirming with Allain that he sent the letter to McInnis via email in October, shortly after his retirement.
"My name is Keith Allain, I have just retired after 19 years as Mens Hockey Coach and I am writing to you at the urging of several head coaches in our Athletic Department. They told me that you were soliciting feedback from a few coaches regarding extending the contract of our athletic director, and are concerned, that with the culture of fear that permeates the athletic department, you will not receive candid feedback," the letter began.
The letter later wrote, "Vicky’s singular talent is self promotion and has created a toxic environment within the department where she is insulated by a cadre of administrators whose main task seems to be silencing any dissent," the letter continued."
On Tuesday, Fox News Digital reported on emails that show a former Yale University administrator telling a lawyer of former Yale strength and conditioning coach Thomas Newman that he was recorded during a meeting.
"A former employee recorded a portion of a meeting with your client, without the university's knowledge," reads part of an email sent to Newman's attorney, Alan Granovsky, from a Yale deputy general counsel, who now no longer works at the university.
The counsel's email was sent in response to an Aug. 13, 2025, letter with the subject line "Ongoing Reputational Harm and Misstatements Regarding Thomas Newman."
The counsel's email also included the lines, "The university has not made any defamatory statements to anyone regarding your client," and "The university did not disclose any medical information inappropriately, the university has not said that your client left the university involuntarily or is subject to an investigation."
Newman's attorneys at Granovsky & Sundaresh Employment law sent multiple emails to Yale regarding the issue and Newman's ultimate departure from the university in 2021, which were provided by a source to Fox News Digital.
Newman confirmed to Fox News Digital that the emails were exchanged by the university and his attorneys, but declined further comment.
An Oct. 10 email from Granovsky to the counsel includes the following allegations:
"You now concede that a former employee recorded a portion of a meeting with Mr. Newman," part of the email wrote, later stating, "Despite knowing the recording was unauthorized, the parties involved— specifically [Executive Deputy Director/Chief Operating Officer of Athletics] Ann-Marie Guglieri and [Athletic Director] Vicky Chun—attempted to use the recording for disciplinary purposes.
Under Connecticut General Statutes § 52-570d, it is unlawful for any individual to record a private conversation without informing and obtaining the consent of all parties involved.
No current or former Yale employee has been incriminated in any illegal activity.
Fox News Digital has reached out to Yale's president's office and athletic department for comment, but has not received a response.
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