Trump Education Dept Warns San Jose State of Impending Title IX Enforcement Over Transgender Volleyball Case

The Trump administration’s Department of Education has formally notified San Jose State University that it faces “impending enforcement action” and potential loss of federal funding over what the agency calls the school’s refusal to remedy Title IX violations tied to a transgender volleyball player who competed on the women’s teams from 2022 to 2024. Assistant civil‑rights secretary Kimberly Richey said SJSU rejected multiple proposed remedies, including segregating athletes strictly by biological sex, barring male students from women’s locker rooms and bathrooms, and restoring titles and accolades to female players. The notice escalates a dispute that entered federal court earlier in March, when SJSU and the California State University system sued to block the department’s investigative findings that the school improperly recruited and concealed the athlete’s sex and ignored safety complaints. The article also references allegations, now part of a separate lawsuit by former co‑captain Brooke Slusser, that coaches told staff not to disclose the player’s birth sex and that the school pursued a Title IX complaint against her for “misgendering” after she spoke about a purported on‑court targeting incident. The case positions SJSU as an early test of how aggressively the Trump administration will enforce its interpretation of sex‑based protections in college sports and how far it is prepared to go in using federal funding leverage against universities that resist.