The U.S. Department of Education has given San Jos\u00e9 State 10 days to comply with a list of demands after finding that the university violated Title IX concerning a transgender volleyball player in 2024. <\/p>\n
A federal investigation was launched into San Jos\u00e9 State a year ago after controversy over a transgender player marred the 2024 volleyball season<\/a>. Four Mountain West Conference teams \u2014 Boise State, Wyoming, Utah State and Nevada-Reno \u2014 each chose to forfeit or cancel two conference matches to San Jos\u00e9 State. Boise State also forfeited its conference tournament semifinal match to the Spartans.<\/p>\n The transgender player, Blaire Fleming<\/a>, was on the San Jos\u00e9 State roster for three seasons after transferring from Coastal Carolina, although opponents protested the player\u2019s participation only in 2024. <\/p>\n In a news release Wednesday<\/a>, the Education Department warned that San Jos\u00e9 State risks \u201cimminent enforcement action\u201d if it doesn\u2019t voluntarily resolve the violations by taking the following actions, not all of which pertain solely to sports:<\/p>\n 1) Issue a public statement that SJSU will adopt biology-based definitions of the words \u201cmale\u201d and \u201cfemale\u201d and acknowledge that the sex of a human \u2014 male or female \u2014 is unchangeable.<\/p>\n 2) Specify that SJSU will follow Title IX by separating sports and intimate facilities based on biological sex.<\/p>\n 3) State that SJSU will not delegate its obligation to comply with Title IX to any external association or entity and will not contract with any entity that discriminates on the basis of sex.<\/p>\n 4) Restore to female athletes all individual athletic records and titles misappropriated by male athletes competing in women\u2019s categories, and issue a personalized letter of apology on behalf of SJSU to each female athlete for allowing her participation in athletics to be marred by sex discrimination.<\/p>\n 5) Send a personalized apology to every woman who played in SJSU\u2019s women\u2019s indoor volleyball from 2022 to 2024, beach volleyball in 2023, and to any woman on a team that forfeited rather than compete against SJSU while a male student was on the roster \u2014 expressing sincere regret for placing female athletes in that position. <\/p>\n \u201cSJSU caused significant harm to female athletes by allowing a male to compete on the women\u2019s volleyball team \u2014 creating unfairness in competition, compromising safety, and denying women equal opportunities in athletics, including scholarships and playing time,\u201d Kimberly Richey<\/a>, Education Department assistant secretary for civil rights, said. <\/p>\n \u201cEven worse, when female athletes spoke out, SJSU retaliated \u2014 ignoring sex-discrimination claims while subjecting one female SJSU athlete to a Title IX complaint for allegedly \u2018misgendering\u2019 the male athlete competing on a women\u2019s team. This is unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n San Jos\u00e9 State responded with a statement acknowledging that the Education Department had informed the university of its investigation and findings.<\/p>\n \u201cThe University is in the process of reviewing the Department\u2019s findings and proposed resolution agreement,\u201d the statement said. \u201cWe remain committed to providing a safe, respectful, and inclusive educational environment for all students while complying with applicable laws and regulations.\u201d<\/p>\n In a New York Times profile<\/a>, Fleming said she learned about transgender identity when she was in eighth grade. \u201cIt was a lightbulb moment,\u201d she said. \u201cI felt this huge relief and a weight off my shoulders. It made so much sense.\u201d<\/p>\n With the support of her mother and stepfather, Fleming worked with a therapist and a doctor and started to socially and medically transition, according to the Times. When she joined the high school girls\u2019 volleyball team, her coaches and teammates knew she was transgender and accepted her.<\/p>\n Fleming\u2019s first two years at San Jos\u00e9 State were uneventful, but in 2024 co-captain Brooke Slusser joined lawsuits against the NCAA, the Mountain West Conference and representatives of San Jos\u00e9 State after alleging she shared hotel rooms and locker rooms with Fleming without being told she is transgender.<\/p>\n The Education Department also determined that Fleming and a Colorado State player conspired to spike Slusser in the face, although a Mountain West investigation found \u201cinsufficient evidence to corroborate the allegations of misconduct.\u201d Slusser was not spiked in the face during the match.<\/p>\n President Trump signed an executive order<\/a> a year ago designed to ban transgender athletes from competing on girls\u2019 and women\u2019s sports teams. The order stated that educational institutions and athletic associations may not ignore \u201cfundamental biological truths between the two sexes.\u201d The NCAA responded by banning transgender athletes. <\/p>\n The order, titled \u201cKeeping Men Out of Women\u2019s Sports,\u201d gives federal agencies, including the Justice and Education departments, wide latitude to ensure entities that receive federal funding abide by Title IX in alignment with the Trump administration\u2019s view, which interprets a person\u2019s sex as the gender they were assigned at birth.<\/p>\n San Jos\u00e9 State has been in the federal government\u2019s crosshairs ever since. If the university does not comply voluntarily to the actions listed by the government, it could face a Justice Department lawsuit and risk losing federal funding.<\/p>\n \u201cWe 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,\u201d Richey said.<\/p>\n San Jos\u00e9 State was found in violation of Title IX <\/a>in an unrelated case in 2021 and paid $1.6 million to more than a dozen female athletes after the Department of Justice<\/a> found that the university failed to properly handle the students\u2019 allegations of sexual abuse by a former athletic trainer.<\/p>\n The federal investigation found that San Jos\u00e9 State did not take adequate action in response to the athletes\u2019 reports and retaliated against two employees who raised repeated concerns about Scott Shaw, the former director of sports medicine. Shaw was sentenced to 24 months in prison<\/a> for unlawfully touching female student-athletes under the guise of providing medical treatment.<\/p>\n The current findings against San Jos\u00e9 State came two weeks after federal investigators announced that the California Community College Athletic Assn. and four other state colleges and school districts are the targets of a probe over whether their transgender participation policies violate Title IX.<\/p>\n The investigation targets a California Community College Athletic Assn. rule that allows transgender and nonbinary students to participate on women\u2019s sports teams if the students have completed \u201cat least one calendar year of testosterone suppression.\u201d<\/p>\n