With federal financial aid for two-thirds of its students and nearly $200 million in research grants at stake, San Jose State University sued the U.S. Department of Education on Friday, accusing the agency of unlawfully threatening to cut off funding over the school’s decision to allow a transgender volleyball player to compete.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose by the California State University system, escalates a highly publicized dispute between the school and federal officials over how Title IX applies to transgender athletes.
“We have a responsibility to defend the integrity of our institution and the rule of law, while ensuring that every member of our community is treated fairly and in accordance with the law,” SJSU President Cynthia Teniente-Matson said in a statement Friday.
The department is threatening to halt federal funding to SJSU, according to the lawsuit. The suit claims the university followed federal law in allowing Blaire Fleming, who has publicly acknowledged being transgender, to compete.
Her presence on the team, revealed by a teammate, garnered national attention as opponents boycotted games.
The school declined to answer questions from this news organization about the lawsuit and possible funding cuts. The Education Department did not immediately respond to questions.
At least 66% of SJSU’s students receive some form of financial aid, which totals about $130 million annually at the school, the lawsuit said.
“Without federal financial aid, many middle- and lower-income students would not be able to afford the cost of attending,” the lawsuit said. “This would be devastating to campus life and would result in an immediate and dramatic contraction in tuition revenue that SJSU depends on to meet its financial obligations.”
A clock is ticking, the lawsuit said, since prospective students for this fall must accept or decline enrollment offers by May 1, the traditional deadline for college admissions.
The school would also lose some $90 million in NASA research funding and another $85 million in research grants from agencies including the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and the defense and energy departments, the lawsuit said.
More than 700 students work on that research, and thousands more participate as volunteers or via coursework, the lawsuit said.
Losing federal funding would lead faculty to go elsewhere, costing the school “invaluable expertise in highly specialized fields like quantum technology, aerospace human factors and wildfire mitigation,” the lawsuit said.
The presence of a transgender Spartan on the women’s volleyball team from 2022 to 2024 put SJSU in the national spotlight — drawing the attention of then-candidate Donald Trump. Just before the 2024 presidential election, he said he would ban transgender women from playing women’s sports.
A Jan. 28 letter to the school from the Education Department said the department’s investigation found SJSU violated Title IX, the federal law barring sex discrimination in federally funded educational institutions.
“When recipients of federal funding treat males who identify as females as if they are biological females, they defeat the very purpose of Title IX: to ensure equal opportunities for women and girls,” the letter said. “Allowing males to compete in women’s sports is demeaning, unfair (and) dangerous to women, and denies women the same equal opportunity to participate and excel in competitive sports afforded to men.”
The department can withhold federal funds from schools in violation of Title IX, the letter said.
Federal authorities gave the school an ultimatum: Sign a “resolution agreement” or the department may suspend or terminate federal funding.
The university system, in the lawsuit, called the proposed agreement “extortionate” and contrary to the law.
In the agreement document, the Education Department demands the university publicly say Title IX forbids it “from allowing male students to compete in any athletic program designated for women.” It also requires the school to state that being female means having a reproductive system for producing eggs and being male means having a reproductive system for producing sperm — language transgender rights advocates say explicitly denies transgender people exist.
To support those definitions of male and female, the document cites two executive orders President Donald Trump signed early last year concerning transgender issues.
A letter Friday from the Cal State University system’s lawyers to the Education Department said the orders “cannot independently create legal obligations for recipients of federal funding,” and continues, “only Congress may impose binding conditions on federal grants.”
The department is also demanding SJSU issue a “personalized apology letter to every woman who played on a team with the allegedly transgender player,” according to the agreement, and to publicly express “genuine regret and remorse” to anyone who played against SJSU while Fleming was on the court.
Fleming’s presence on the team complied with rules from the National Collegiate Athletic Association and its Mountain West Conference, and from USA Volleyball, the lawsuit said. Rulings from the Ninth Circuit federal court of appeals barring discrimination against transgender people make it clear that “excluding the player from the team or facilities would have been unlawful discrimination,” the lawsuit argued.
The lawsuit noted that the U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether bans on transgender women in women’s sports are unconstitutional. Regardless of the court’s decision, there is no reasonable argument that SJSU should lose federal funding by obeying the Ninth Circuit ruling; it was “obligated to follow” when Fleming was playing, the lawsuit said.
Lawyers for each side are to appear in court June 10 for a case-management conference.