The debate surrounding the women’s volleyball team at San Jose State University having a transgender athlete on its roster is escalating as a dozen women — including a co-captain of the team that fields the transgender player — filed a lawsuit against the school officials and the athletic conference that governs the team.
The group of women, which includes San Jose State Spartans co-captain Brook Slusser and two former players, along with athletes from four other schools that compete in the Mountain West Conference, is alleging that the school is violating Title IX rules and their First Amendment rights by adopting a “Transgender Participation Policy,” according to a report from Outkick.
The suit comes as Mountain West is about to hold a conference tournament at Las Vegas starting November 27.
“The NCAA, Mountain West Conference, and college athletic directors around the country are failing women,” the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, Bill Bock, said. He also represents the Independent Council on Women’s Sport that is backing the lawsuit.
“Because the administrators don’t have the courage to do their jobs, we have to ask the federal courts to do their jobs for them,” he added.
The filing alleges that Mountain West adopted the new policy on the same day that Boise State forfeited its match against San Jose State because transgender player Blair Fleming is on the roster.
The plaintiffs also claim that Mountain West Commissioner Gloria Nevarez enacted the policy — which states that transgender student-athletes can compete after passing NCAA requirements — only after schools began to complain and to tamp down protests from other teams in the conference.
“This new policy was clearly intended to chill and suppress the free speech rights of women athletes in the MWC,” the suit claims, adding that the new policy was adopted in haste and that its sole purpose was to stop other schools from following Boise State’s lead and forfeiting their games.
Three other women’s volleyball teams have forfeited their matchups with San Jose State this season rather than face the transgender athlete — Utah State, the University of Nevada, and the University of Wyoming, which forfeited two games this season.
The lawsuit is seeking an injunction before the tournament begins at the end of the month and asks for the conference to disqualify San Jose State or disqualify Ms. Fleming for participating and remove the losses of the four teams that forfeited in protest, which would bring down the Spartan’s record from second place to sixth.
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