(The Center Square) – The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights announced Wednesday that San José State University violated Title IX due to policies allowing transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports and use women’s facilities.
The department opened an investigation into SJSU in February 2025 following a 2024 civil rights complaint filed by Concerned Women for America, which alleged the California university failed to protect the rights of female athletes under federal law.
After concluding its review, OCR determined that SJSU violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.
According to the department, beginning in 2022, the university recruited transgender athletes to compete on women’s volleyball teams and instructed coaching staff not to inform female players that one athlete was a male.
Female athletes reportedly shared intimate facilities with the transgender student without their knowledge of the student being transgender.
“[W]hen 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,” Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said.
At the start, administrators stated they would comply with the federal investigation
“We follow policies and regulations set forth by the California State University system and applicable law, and we recognize that at times, these laws and policies may intersect in complex ways,” San José State President Cynthia Teniente-Matson said in a statement.
Following the department’s announcement, several female advocacy groups praised the Trump administration’s Title IX enforcement efforts.
“Biological realities give men an advantage against women, making it inherently unfair for men to compete in women’s sports,” said Penny Nance, CEO and president of Concerned Women for America. “We are grateful that our civil rights complaint was not ignored, and we will not stop fighting for the rights of biological female athletes to have fair competition, safety, and equal opportunities.”
Payton McNabb, an Independent Women sports ambassador, commended the administration and the Department of Education for taking the issue seriously, saying SJSU failed its female athletes through intimidation and by sacrificing their rights and safety.
“No university should ever pressure women to stay silent or sacrifice their opportunities to spare someone else’s feelings,” McNabb said.
OCR issued a proposed resolution agreement requiring SJSU to address the violations. Under the agreement, the university must:
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.
