The Trump Administration’s Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights today announced that San José State University policies allowing transgender female athletes to compete in women’s sports violated Title IX, the 1972 law aimed at ending discrimination against women in U.S. schools and colleges.
The decision ended a year-long investigation of complaints by a former coach and several athletes that accused San Jose State University’s volleyball team of sex discrimination.
In a proposed “resolution agreement,” San Jose State was told it could avoid penalties if it, among other things, issued “a public statement to the SJSU community that SJSU will adopt biology-based definitions of the words ‘male’ and ‘female’ and acknowledge that the sex of a human – male or female – is unchangeable.”
As of this afternoon, San Jose State had not publicly responded to the Education Department’s ruling or the demands.
In a press release announcing the decision, the Education Department did not use the term “transgender,” instead accusing San Jose State of allowing “males to compete in women’s sports and access female-only facilities.”
The San Jose State investigation was initiated after a Feb. 5, 2025 executive order by President Donald Trump that banned transgender athletes. In response to the executive order, the National Collegiate Athletic Association later banned transgender athletes from NCAA sports.
Federal education officials last year initially said the investigation was prompted by a Fox Sports account of a San Jose State women’s volleyball game involving Blaire Fleming, whom it called a “male athlete.”
The Education Department later said it was investigating “allegations that the university allowed a male to compete on the female indoor volleyball team and allegedly retaliated against female students and an assistant coach who condemned its ‘gender identity’ policies.”
“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,” the Education Department said in the Jan. 28 press release.
“Even worse, when female athletes spoke out, SJSU retaliated—ignoring sex-discrimination claims while subjecting one female SJSU athlete to a Title IX complaint for allegedly ‘misgendering’ the male athlete competing on a women’s team,” said the department’s Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey. “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.”
As a result of the noncompliance finding, Richey‘s office issued a proposed “Resolution Agreement” that would give San Jose State the opportunity “to voluntarily resolve its Title IX violations.”
The proposed agreement would require San Jose State to take the following actions:
- “Issue a public statement to the SJSU community that SJSU will adopt biology-based definitions of the words ‘male’ and ‘female’ and acknowledge that the sex of a human – male or female – is unchangeable
- “Specify that SJSU will follow Title IX by separating sports and intimate facilities based on biological sex
- “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
- “Restore to individual female athletes all individual athletic records and titles misappropriated by male athletes competing in women’s 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
- “Send a personalized apology to every woman who played in SJSU’s women’s indoor volleyball (2022–2024), 2023 beach volleyball, and to any woman on a team that forfeited rather than compete against SJSU while a male student was on the roster—expressing sincere regret for placing female athletes in that position.”
The Education Department summarized its findings, that:
Beginning in 2022, SJSU actively recruited and allowed a male to compete on the women’s indoor and beach volleyball teams and reportedly instructed members of the coaching staff not to tell the female players that the athlete was a male. As a result, female athletes on the team shared women’s locker rooms and hotel rooms with the male student while being unaware that he is a member of the opposite sex.
“In addition to privacy concerns, the presence of this male athlete presented a safety concern for female athletes and provided SJSU’s volleyball team with an unfair physical advantage over opposing teams. On multiple occasions, the male athlete spiked the ball so forcefully that it knocked females on the opposing team to the ground. During one season, seven all-women’s teams from other universities forfeited their competitions, accepting a loss rather than competing against a male.”
The Education Department “concluded that SJSU also violated Title IX by failing to promptly and equitably investigate Title IX complaints filed by SJSU female athletes about the presence of the male on their team and by taking action that discouraged women from participating in the Title IX process.
“In addition, days after a SJSU female volleyball player joined a Title IX lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletic Association, she discovered that the male student had conspired to have a member of the opposing team spike her in the face during an upcoming match. SJSU did not investigate the conspiracy, but later subjected this female athlete to a Title IX complaint for reportedly “misgendering” the male athlete when discussing this incident in online videos and interviews.”
Seems like a generous offer.
SJSU violated civil rights law (the legal equivalent of state-sponsored racial discrimination), and in a just world those responsible would lose their jobs instead of getting a slap-on-the-wrist forced apology.