Trump admin says SJSU now faces ‘imminent enforcement’ over transgender volleyball scandal conflict

FIRST ON News: President Donald Trump’s Department of Education said it has notified San Jose State University (SJSU) that it faces “imminent enforcement action” for its “refusal to comply with Title IX.”

SJSU and the California State University (CSU) system filed a lawsuit in early March to challenge a Department of Education investigation that found the university violated Title IX in its handling of a biological transgender volleyball player on a 2022-24 women’s team.

Now, the administration is cracking down on that resistance.

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“We have provided SJSU with multiple opportunities to resolve its Title IX violations with common-sense actions: separating male and female athletes based on their biological sex, keeping men out of women’s locker rooms and restrooms, restoring rightfully earned titles and accolades to female athletes, and apologizing to women forced to forfeit competitions to protect themselves,” Kimberly Richey, the department’s assistant secretary for civil rights, said in an announcement.

“Yet SJSU remains stubborn, choosing radical ideology over safety, dignity and justice for its own students. With today’s action, the Department is putting the university on notice: comply with the law or risk losing your federal funding.”

News Digital reached out to SJSU and CSU for a response.

The conflict between the Trump administration and the school dates back to the 2024 season, when a national controversy involving transgender player Blaire Fleming set off a media storm during the election cycle, all during Trump’s third campaign for the White House.

The Department of Education investigation stated, “SJSU actively recruited and allowed a man to compete on the women’s beach and indoor volleyball teams and reportedly directed members of the coaching staff not to tell players that the athlete was a man.”

The investigation added that “on multiple occasions, the male athlete hit the ball with such force that it knocked the women on the opposing team to the ground.”

One of the notable details of the investigation’s findings was that an SJSU female player “discovered that the student had conspired to have a member of the opposing team punch her in the face during an upcoming game. SJSU did not investigate the conspiracy, but then subjected this athlete to a Title IX complaint for allegedly ‘misgendering’ the male athlete by discussing this incident in online videos and interviews.”

Former SJSU co-captain Brooke Slusser included those allegations in her ongoing lawsuit against SJSU and CSU representatives.

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After SJSU and CSU announced they would sue the Trump administration to challenge the findings, Slusser and other former NCAA players spoke out about their alleged experience during the scandal and how it affected them, in recent interviews with News Digital.

Slusser, who shared an apartment with Fleming at SJSU without knowing the athlete’s birth sex, became the topic of viral debate after his interview reflecting on the experience of sharing spaces with Fleming.

“You realize you’re just relaxing in bed with a man you have no idea about… [was] unknowingly sharing a bed at the time with a man,” Slusser said, also alleging that SJSU volleyball coach Todd Kress encouraged her to live in the same apartment as the trans teammate when another group of players were also looking for a final tenant.

Former Utah State volleyball star Kaylie Ray told News Digital that during matches against SJSU and Fleming in 2022 and 2023, before Fleming’s birth sex was known, her teammates suffered finger injuries due to the trans athlete’s spikes.

“I had teammates who had seriously injured their fingers, fortunately not broken, but a handful of girls suffered minor injuries from the player,” Ray said, adding, “We knew that if the male athlete had a phenomenal game, there was nothing we could do to stop that person.”

Ray’s Utah State team became one of five teams to lose at least one game to SJSU in 2024, apparently in protest against Fleming. She says the loss hurt her team’s hopes of winning its fourth straight Mountain West championship.

Meanwhile, the University of Wyoming lost two games to SJSU in 2024. Former Cowgirls player Macey Boggs told News Digital that the decision to forfeit the games “permanently ruined” friendships among her teammates.

“There were some girls that I really enjoyed and we got along really well, and then this situation came up, conflict arose and we finally went separate directions because of that… as soon as we played our last game, we all went separate directions… it was hard to maintain those relationships,” Boggs said.

SJSU was plagued by a separate Title IX violation in athletics that it had to resolve with the Biden administration in 2021. The university ultimately reached a $1.6 million resolution with the Department of Justice in 2021.

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The DOJ concluded that SJSU failed to adequately respond for more than a decade to reports of sexual harassment, including sexual assault, of student-athletes by an athletic trainer then employed at SJSU, beginning in 2009 when female student-athletes reported that the coach subjected them to repeated, unwanted sexual touching.

The department and SJSU signed a comprehensive agreement to address the findings of the investigation, which began in June 2020 during Trump’s first term.

Now, the current Trump administration is giving the school 10 more days to comply with a series of resolution agreements to resolve the volleyball situation, or face enforcement action, including referral to the Department of Justice and termination of SJSU’s federal funding.

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