The Trump Administration announced Tuesday that San Jose State University violated Title IX when it allowed a transgender athlete to play on the women’s volleyball team and is demanding the university apologize to every player and acknowledge that the “sex of a human — male or female — is unchangeable.”
The university became a flashpoint during Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign for president when former Spartan co-captain Brooke Slusser joined a lawsuit accusing the National Collegiate Athletic Association of discriminating against women by allowing transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports. Numerous teams forfeited matches against the Spartans in protest of playing against an athlete they believed had an unfair advantage.
“SJSU caused significant harm to female athletes by allowing a male to compete on the women’s volleyball team — creating unfairness in competition, compromising safety, and denying women equal opportunities in athletics, including scholarships and playing time,” Kimberly Richey, the U.S. Department of Education‘s assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement Tuesday. “We will not relent until SJSU is held to account for these abuses and commits to upholding Title IX to protect future athletes from the same indignities.”
San Jose State, which never publicly acknowledged a transgender athlete played on the team because the player did not come out publicly, did not immediately respond Tuesday morning to requests for comment. Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs.
In its news release, the Department of Education said that to resolve the Title IX violations, San Jose would be required to issue a public statement to the university community that it will will adopt “biology-based definitions of the words ‘male’ and ‘female’ and acknowledge that the sex of a human — male or female — is unchangeable.”
It also requires the university to separate sports and “intimate” facilities “based on biological sex,” restore to all individual athletic records and titles “misappropriated by male athletes competing in women’s categories,” and issue a personalized letter of apology to each female athlete for “allowing her participation in athletics to be marred by sex discrimination,” as well as to any athlete on a team that forfeited.
Trump made the issue a priority once in office, signing an executive order called “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.” In February, the N.C.A.A. announced it was banning transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports, and in March, Gov. Gavin Newsom, during a podcast with the late conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, called it “deeply unfair” for transgender athletes to compete on women’s teams.
The issue has transcended political parties, with polls showing an overwhelming percentage of Americans believe that transgender players should be banned from women’s sports.
Equality California, a statewide LGBTQ advocacy group, however, pointed out that Trump’s executive order and subsequent investigations by the Department of Education break from long-held interpretations of Title IX that under the Obama and Biden administrations protected transgender athletes from discrimination.
“This is not just a single attack,” said Jorge Reyes from Equality California. “This is an ongoing attack against one community, and it involves sports, yes, and it involves healthcare and involves safety. So this is not just a one story about sports. This is really a bigger attack.”
Transgender youth and young adults, he said, deserve to play on teams that match their gender identity.
California law requires public schools to allow students to participate in all school activities, including sports teams, that match their gender identity. Newsom, who has been a longtime supporter of LGBTQ rights and performed the first gay weddings when he was mayor of San Francisco, has called for a change in state law to clarify the issue.
In the meantime, it’s unclear whether San Jose State can or will comply with the Department of Education’s requirements. In June, the same federal agency announced a similar ultimatum to the state of California, also requiring it to ban transgender athletes and apologize to female athletes. Despite the Trump Administration’s threats to cut federal funding, the state has declined to sign the resolution.
The controversy at San Jose State first made headlines in conservative media outlets, including Reduxx that outed the athlete before the 2024 season. Not until last spring did the player, Blaire Fleming, come out publicly in a New York Times story. In it, she said that volleyball coach Trent Kersten told her that her gender identity was an open secret on the team.
“He said that these teammates were very supportive and told him that they loved and cared about me,” Fleming told the New York Times. “They said that they didn’t expect me to talk about it if I didn’t want to, but they had wanted to let me know that I was safe.”
Former co-captain Slusser, however, has said that she was upset to learn of Fleming’s gender identity only after having lived as roommates and travel companions. Other Spartan volleyball players, along with Melissa Batie-Smoose, the team’s assistant coach who says she was suspended in the midst of the controversy, later joined a second lawsuit with Slusser against university officials and others.
Slusser has since become a figurehead in the debate, speaking earlier this month on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, where justices were hearing arguments on whether West Virginia and Idaho were violating Title IX by banning transgender athletes in youth sports.
“As much as people say there’s only a few men playing in women’s sports out there…those few men are affecting thousands of women,” Slusser said at the time. Fleming, she said, “affected hundreds of women and changed the course of our entire season.”
She was so traumatized by the experience, she said, she moved back home to Texas when the season ended.
In her statement Tuesday, Richey from the Department of Education, said her agency “will not relent until SJSU is held to account for these abuses and commits to upholding Title IX to protect future athletes from the same indignities.”