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FIRST ON FOX: The U.S. Department of Education (ED) announced Wednesday that it has determined that San Jose State University violated Title IX due to its handling of a transgender former volleyball player. The university now has 10 days to comply with a series of agreements or face “imminent enforcement action”.
The ED launched an investigation into the university last February after a high-profile college volleyball season in which seven teams lost matches to SJSU amid controversy.
Former SJSU co-captain Brooke Slusser has joined several lawsuits against the NCAA, Mountain West Conference and university officials after alleging she was forced to share locker rooms and rooms with trans teammate Blaire Fleming in 2023 without being told that Fleming is a biological male.
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Trans SJSU player Blaire Fleming and teammate Brooke Slusser went to a magic show and celebrated Thanksgiving together in Las Vegas despite a pending lawsuit over Fleming’s transgender status. (Thien-An Truong/San Jose State Athletics)
Former assistant coach Melissa Batie-Smoose was suspended and later did not re-sign to a new contract after filing a Title IX complaint against the school for its handling of Fleming.
The ED has now determined that SJSU denied women equal educational opportunities and benefits, and that the school retaliated against female athletes who spoke out.
“SJSU caused significant harm to female athletes by allowing a man to compete on the women’s volleyball team, creating an injustice in competition, compromising safety, and denying women equal opportunities in athletics, including scholarships and playing time,” ED Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said in a statement provided to PK Press Club Digital.
“Even worse, when female athletes spoke out, SJSU retaliated by ignoring allegations of gender discrimination while subjecting an SJSU female athlete to a Title IX complaint for allegedly ‘misinterpreting’ the male athlete competing on a women’s team. This is unacceptable. We will not relent until SJSU is held accountable for these abuses and commits to upholding Title IX to protect future athletes from the same indignities.”
Among the department’s findings, it determined that a female athlete discovered that the trans student allegedly conspired to have a member of an opposing team punch her face during a game. ED claims that “SJSU failed to investigate the conspiracy, but subsequently subjected the female athlete to a Title IX complaint for ‘mischaracterizing’ the male athlete in online videos and interviews.”
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Slusser alleged in her November 2024 lawsuit against Mountain West that she and Batie-Smoose were informed of a meeting between Fleming and Colorado State women’s volleyball player Malaya Jones on October 2, 2024, during which Fleming discussed a plan with Jones to have Slusser get poked in the face during a game the following night.
The Mountain West Conference launched its own investigation into the allegations, but determined it could not find enough evidence to take disciplinary action.
However, PK Press Club Digital reported in the summer of 2025 that Mountain West had hired the same law firm to conduct the investigation that defended the conference against Slusser’s lawsuit that included the same allegations against Fleming.
The attorney charged with leading the investigation was Timothy Heaphy of Willkie Farr & Gallagher (WFG). Heaphy previously served as senior advisor to the U.S. House of Representatives select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol.
Former SJSU volleyball captain Brooke Slusser with her parents Paul and Kim Slusser, with Tim Heaphy and Blaire Fleming. (Getty Images/Courtesy Kim Slusser)
WFG subsequently removed the web page for a press release announcing that it had successfully defended Mountain West against a request for a preliminary injunction that would have made Fleming ineligible to complete the 2024 season and participate in the Mountain West tournament.
Slusser later told PK Press Club Digital that she had a conversation with a teammate who was interviewed as part of the conference’s investigation into Fleming’s alleged scheme. PK Press Club Digital is not disclosing the identity of the teammate.
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“From what I’ve been told, exactly what one of my teammates saw happening that night – talking about the scouting report and leaving the net open – was told to these lawyers. So that should have been sufficient evidence. [of the alleged plan by Fleming]” Slusser told PK Press Club Digital, adding that she would like to see the investigation reopened.
“People tell you this happened, and it’s not second-hand information. She was sitting there and overheard the conversation between Blaire and [former Colorado State volleyball player] Malaysia [Jones]. So, to me, from what I know, without even having to dig into this investigation, there is enough evidence, and they were told there was enough evidence.”
PK Press Club Digital cannot independently verify that Slusser’s teammate corroborated the allegations against Fleming when he spoke to investigators.
PK Press Club Digital later interviewed SJSU athletic director Jeff Konya about Slusser’s claims, airing a video clip of Slusser reciting the allegations during Mountain West media days on July 15.
“I don’t know if she’s telling the truth or not,” Konya said of Slusser’s claims.
Konya could not confirm or deny whether any of the witnesses interviewed corroborated the allegations against Fleming.
“I have no idea,” Konya said.
Batie-Smoose filed her own lawsuit against the California State University (CSU) System Board of Trustees because SJSU is one of 23 California schools that are part of the system. Batie-Smoose and her attorney Vernadette Broyles believe the suspension was “retaliation” for her Title IX complaint against Fleming.
Batie-Smoose said she wasn’t informed that Fleming was a man until after she accepted the job at SJSU in February 2023, and claims she wasn’t officially told the truth about Fleming until she started asking questions about it, and head coach Todd Kress finally told her, a few weeks into her tenure.
Batie-Smoose alleges she was then told she couldn’t tell other players or the players’ parents.
“Todd Kress told me in passing… because I was asking… ‘Oh, by the way, Blaire is a man,'” Batie-Smoose said, adding that she was threatened with being fired if she told other athletes or her parents.
“Todd Kress and the administration, Laura Alexandra, were not allowed to talk about this, or allow parents to know, or anyone to know.”
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Meanwhile, the situation left a lingering physical and mental impact on Slusser. She previously told PK Press Club Digital that the panic and stress of that time in her life caused her to develop an eating disorder, which led to severe anorexia that got so bad that she lost her menstrual cycle for nine months.
“I went from about 160 to 128 [lbs] during this semester. It’s definitely not healthy for someone my size to be that weight, and I ended up losing my menstrual cycle for nine months. So it was really bad,” said Slusser, who is 5 feet 11 inches tall.
After the 2024 season and fall semester ended, Slusser’s parents saw the physical impact the situation was having on her and demanded that she return home to Texas.
“As soon as the season was over, she came home for Christmas and we told her, ‘You’re not going back,'” her father, Paul Slusser, told PK Press Club Digital. He told his daughter, “You can go get your stuff next summer, when your lease is up, and stay here.” »
Once winter break ended and what was supposed to be her final semester began, Brooke attempted to take her classes online.
Her parents said she started online classes, but dropped them soon after. Inasmuch as Division I scholarship athletedropping the course meant he lost the scholarship and his family had to pay the full semester’s tuition and accommodation out of pocket.
“We had to basically pay his mortgage and his apartment for the rest of the semester, so it was a pretty significant financial burden on us when this happened,” Paul Slusser said.
She is no longer a student at SJSU and will complete her degree at another school.
Now, President Donald Trump’s administration is seeking consequences on the situation.
The ED resolution conditions that SJSU must comply with in order to avoid “imminent enforcement action” are as follows:
- Issue a public statement to the SJSU community that SJSU will adopt biologically based definitions of the words “man” and “woman” and recognize that the sex of a human being – male or female – is immutable;
- Clarify that SJSU will follow Title IX by segregating 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 an entity that discriminates on the basis of sex;
- Return to individual female athletes all individual sporting records and titles misappropriated by male athletes competing in female categories, and send a personalized letter of apology on behalf of SJSU to each female athlete for allowing her participation in athletics to be tainted by gender discrimination; And
- Send a personalized apology to every woman who played SJSU women’s indoor volleyball (2022-2024), 2023 beach volleyball, and any woman on a team who withdrew rather than compete against SJSU while a male student was on the roster – expressing sincere regret for placing female athletes in that position.
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In 2025, ED entered into resolutions with the University of Pennsylvania for its handling of transgender swimmer Lia Thomas and Wagner College for its handling of transgender fencer Redmond Sullivan. However, he was unable to reach agreements with state agencies in Maine and California, leading to lawsuits within the department.
SJSU’s response will determine the next chapter in the president’s mission to “save women’s sports.”
