A transgender woman competed on the San José State women’s volleyball team from 2022 to 2024.
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Since President Trump took office, his administration has used executive orders and civil rights investigations, among other tools, to target policies aimed at supporting transgender students.
Officials have said those policies, which include allowing students to compete in the sport that aligns with their gender—not their sex at birth—and to use the corresponding bathrooms and locker rooms, violate Title IX because they deny cisgender female athletes equal opportunities. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 bars sex-based discrimination and harassment, and advocates for trans students say the administration is weaponizing the 53-year-old law to advance its agenda. Trump officials say they are enforcing the law as intended.
So far, the crackdown has included seeking to retroactively punish universities that have allowed trans athletes to compete according to NCAA rules and demanding that administrators strip them of any athletic records and apologize to the cisgender female competitors who played against them. The University of Pennsylvania was the first to receive the set of demands, and it eventually agreed.
Then, in January, ED made similar demands of San José State University, which allowed a transgender woman to compete on the women’s volleyball team from 2022 to 2024. (If the university refused the proposed resolution agreement, OCR threatened to cut San José State off from federal aid.)
But San José State officials said last week that those demands and the department’s finding run afoul of the law, and they are asking ED to rescind them. The university and the broader California State University system then went further, suing the department in federal court and setting up a high-stakes legal fight. The university wants a federal judge to prevent ED from taking action to block federal funding to San José State.
“The letter and findings must be set aside,” San José State lawyers wrote in the complaint. “They are contrary to law, they are arbitrary and capricious, they impose unconstitutional conditions, they attempt to compel speech in violation of the First Amendment, and they impermissibly attempt to impose new obligations retroactively. SJSU has filed this action to defend the rule of law and protect itself and its community against such lawless acts by the federal government.”
The university argues in the 106-page complaint that the student in question, Blaire Fleming, was eligible to play under NCAA and conference policies as well as federal Title IX regulations. The lawsuit notes that from 2022 to 2024, the Education and Justice Departments took the position that Title IX prohibited discrimination against and harassment of transgender people. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit also has said education institutions can’t discriminate against students because they are transgender, and the university says it’s bound by that ruling.
“Whether and under what conditions transgender women should be allowed to compete in women’s athletics has been hotly contested,” the complaint states. “But this case is not about that issue. It is about the department’s attempt to punish SJSU, even though the law in the Ninth Circuit has been and is clear.”
San José State officials acknowledge that Trump issued several executive orders in January and February 2025 declaring that the policy of the United States is that there are two sexes—male and female—which are “not changeable.” The orders also banned transgender women from competing in women’s sports at federally funded schools and colleges.
But the administration “cannot rewrite the past,” the complaint says.
“These January and February 2025 orders do not and cannot change what SJSU was obligated to do from 2022 to 2024,” the university wrote. “The President does not have the authority to override judicial decisions interpreting the Constitution or federal statutes—much less to go back in time and change the rules that applied before he took office.”
The university said it has complied with the law and will continue to do so. The Education Department has yet to respond to the lawsuit in court.
San José State is one of a few universities that have taken the Trump administration to court. Aside from lawsuits challenging cuts to research funding, only Harvard University has sued on its own, according to an Inside Higher Ed database.
Cynthia Teniente-Matson, president of San José State, wrote in a message to the campus community that “this is not a step we take lightly.”
“However, 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,” she wrote. “Our position is simple: We have followed the law and cannot be punished for doing so.”
