Feds demand university apologize for letting male athlete compete, forcing women's teams to forfeit

By Samantha Kamman, Christian Post Reporter Thursday, January 29, 2026

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights declared that San José State University must resolve its Title IX violations by apologizing to female athletes for allowing a male athlete to play on the women’s volleyball team. 

On Wednesday, the department announced that its federal investigation concluded that the California school violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits discrimination based on sex in education programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance. 

SJSU’s policies allowing males to compete in women’s sports and access female-only spaces deny women equal educational opportunities and benefits, the department contends.

“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,” Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said in a statement. 

“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. This is unacceptable,” Richey continued. 

OCR began the investigation in February 2025, following allegations that the university retaliated against female students and an assistant coach who did not agree with the school’s “gender identity” policies. SJSU also made headlines in 2024 after several women’s volleyball teams forfeited matches against the school to avoid competing against Blaire Fleming, a male athlete who identifies as a woman.

In a proposed Resolution Agreement, OCR requested that the university take several actions to resolve its Title IX violations, including releasing a public statement acknowledging that the sex of a human is “unchangeable.” 

The resolution calls on SJSU to restore to female athletes “all individual athletic records and titles misappropriated by male athletes competing in women’s categories,” and to issue an apology letter to each female athlete for subjecting her to sex discrimination. 

OCR asked SJSU to apologize to every woman who played in SJSU’s women’s indoor volleyball from 2022 to 2024 and beach volleyball in 2023, and the women on opposing teams who forfeited rather than compete against a male athlete.

San José State University did not immediately respond to The Christian Post’s request for comment on the proposed agreement.

At the beginning of 2022, SJSU allowed a male who identified as female to compete on the women’s indoor and beach volleyball teams, instructing the coaching staff not to reveal the boy’s real sex to the female athletes, according to OCR. 

In addition to forcing women to share locker rooms and hotel rooms with a male student, SJSU is accused of endangering female athletes on opposing teams by forcing them to compete against a player who had a physical advantage over them.

As Fox News reported in October 2024, the controversy intensified after a video surfaced of him spiking a ball so forcefully that it knocked a woman on the other team to the ground. 

The Trump administration has feuded with other universities that have allowed men to compete in women's sports. In July, the Department of Education announced an agreement with the University of Pennsylvania after concluding that the university violated Title IX by allowing a male trans-identified athlete to compete on the women's swim team after three years of competing on the men's team. That athlete went on to become a national champion in the women's division. 

The department said the university agreed to “restore to female athletes all individual UPenn Division I swimming records, titles, or similar recognitions which were misappropriated by male athletes allowed to compete in female categories.”

In February, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled "Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports," threatening to revoke federal funding to institutions that "deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy."

Days after the president's order, the National Collegiate Athletics Association announced a policy change prohibiting trans-identified male athletes from competing in women's sports, citing the need for "uniform eligibility standards."