{"id":212281,"date":"2026-03-09T23:29:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T23:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/212281\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T23:29:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T23:29:09","slug":"san-jose-state-university-sues-trump-admin-over-anti-trans-threats-refusing-to-capitulate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/212281\/","title":{"rendered":"San Jos\u00e9 State University Sues Trump Admin Over Anti-Trans Threats\u2014Refusing to Capitulate"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Your<\/a>San Jose State University \/\/ California.com<\/p>\n

San Jos\u00e9 State University in California has filed a scathing lawsuit<\/a> against the Trump Administration\u2019s Department of Education, rejecting the regime\u2019s attempts to use the crisis it manufactured over transgender athletes as a vessel for even more repressive and consequential anti-LGBTQ crackdowns.<\/p>\n

San Jos\u00e9 State, a college about an hour\u2019s drive south of San Francisco, became a flashpoint of the right\u2019s obsession with trans youth after a student athlete was outed on the national stage<\/a>. The Trump regime investigated SJSU for supposed civil rights violations, arguing that the athlete\u2019s mere presence on the team infringed on the rights of the other women and Title IX. <\/p>\n

The \u201cresolution<\/a>\u201d proposed by the Department\u2019s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) would have the university ban trans women from women\u2019s sports teams, bathrooms, locker rooms, and dorm rooms, in violation of state law; strip trans women of their athletic medals and honors; issue apology letters to any presumed-cisgender woman who competed with a trans athlete; and adopt the GOP\u2019s definition of \u201csex\u201d in every aspect of campus life going ahead. If they don\u2019t comply, they could lose federal funding.<\/p>\n

Instead, San Jos\u00e9 State went on the offense. They\u2019re suing.<\/p>\n

Federal agencies have cajoled countless institutions of higher education into some form of capitulation since the beginning of Trump\u2019s renewed term. UPenn<\/a>, Brown<\/a>, Northwestern<\/a> and other elite colleges have made bargains sacrificing anything from trans athletes to life-saving care for trans youth<\/a> to preserve their federal funding.<\/p>\n

In SJSU\u2019s lawsuit, filed late last week, the university emphasized it would follow all applicable laws, but that the law is not the basis of Trump\u2019s investigation; transphobia is.<\/p>\n

According to Iris, a San Jos\u00e9 State graduate student and president of the student-led campus group Trans Talk, the unapologetic lawsuit represents much-needed support for trans students\u2014especially at a time when other universities are bending the knee to Trump\u2019s anti-trans agenda.<\/p>\n

\u201cAppeasement doesn\u2019t work,\u201d Iris told Erin in the Morning. \u201cThey just come back for more. So standing up now is really important.\u201d <\/p>\n

(Iris requested her last name be omitted due to safety and privacy concerns.)<\/p>\n

The lawsuit itself challenges Trump\u2019s anti-trans threats on the grounds that it constitutes government overreach, that it violates the Administrative Procedure Act, and that it is downright unconstitutional. It attempts to retroactively punish SJSU over Trumpian policies it did not break, in part because the supposed violations pre-date the President\u2019s current term.<\/p>\n

In fact, San Jos\u00e9 State was not just permitted to, but legally obligated to follow trans inclusive policies.<\/p>\n

\u201c[T]here is no question that SJSU\u2019s conduct was required by Ninth Circuit law and the federal government\u2019s own guidance at the time,\u201d the complaint reads. California also retains some of the strongest equal rights laws in the country for transgender Americans. Therefore, Trump\u2019s threat to hold critical funding hostage over trans athletes is \u201cnot because SJSU violated the law,\u201d the complaint reads, \u201cbut because SJSU followed the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet the goal posts keep moving, and the Department of Education is threatening to pull funding from any college or university that doesn\u2019t adhere\u2014at times, retroactively\u2014to its contortion of Title IX. Its \u201cproposal<\/a>\u201d seeks to force the school to redefine \u201csex,\u201d and Title IX itself, based on unscientific, arbitrary, and politically-charged rhetoric:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>An excerpt from the proposal by the Department of Education, which SJSU rejected.<\/p>\n

This proposal would target trans people \u201cin all practices, policies and procedures\u201d at the university. This includes \u201cintimate facilities, such as locker rooms, bathrooms, student housing, and overnight accommodations,\u201d which would have to be divided \u201cstrictly on the basis of sex,\u201d the proposal says.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Proposed settlement agreement rejected by SJSU<\/p>\n

In response, the lawsuit takes a bold stance in challenging the very premises of Trump\u2019s anti-trans crusade, pulling back the curtain on the right-wing smear campaign against trans people. In this case, for example, anti-trans activists pearl-clutched about the necessity of separating teams by \u201csex\u201d on the basis of \u201csafety,\u201d positioning women as so much weaker than men that their mere co-presence on the court is a physical danger. <\/p>\n

In reality, the men\u2019s and women\u2019s teams often play against each other for practice at SJSU and other colleges, the complaint says. Like many of these high-profile clashes over trans athletes, the issue was never gender parity or sex separation. It was always about pushing the needle further and further to the right and sequestering trans people from public life.<\/p>\n

This lawsuit comes after over a year of legal back-and-forth, culminating in the OCR\u2019s \u201cProposed Resolution Agreement,\u201d which\u2014among other provisions\u2014requires SJSU to publicly agree that it violated Title IX, discriminate against trans athletes moving ahead, rebuke trans-inclusive language, and send out apology letters to presumed-cisgender athletes expressing \u201cremorse\u201d for welcoming trans student athletes.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the same playbook federal officials used at the University of Pennsylvania<\/a> against champion swimmer Lia Thomas, who is trans, and whose fifth-place tie at a swim meet led to the anti-trans activism career of Riley Gaines.<\/a><\/p>\n

Among other infringements, SJSU argues this is a brazen violation of the Constitutional right to free speech.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe First Amendment forbids such compelled speech, except when it survives strict scrutiny,\u201d the lawsuit reads. Trump\u2019s proposal demands that SJSU \u201cexpress[es] certain sentiments, like remorse\u201d with \u201cparticular individuals of the government\u2019s choosing […] in the way the government wants.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement to the press<\/a>, the California State University system, which oversees SJSU, made clear its commitment to standing up for its students. \u201cThe federal government may not punish the CSU for conduct that complied with binding federal law and the government\u2019s own guidance at the time,\u201d it reads.<\/p>\n

\u201cTherefore, the CSU will not agree to accept the terms of the Proposed Resolution Agreement,\u201d it continued. \u201cThe CSU remains unwavering in its commitment to fostering an inclusive, respectful, and safe environment for all students, faculty, and staff\u2014including members of our LGBTQ+ community.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Jose State University \/\/ California.com San Jos\u00e9 State University in California has filed a scathing lawsuit against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212282,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[88,90,89],"class_list":{"0":"post-212281","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-jose","8":"tag-san-jose","9":"tag-san-jose-headlines","10":"tag-san-jose-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212281\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}