The California State University (CSU) system filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) this week, pushing back against what it describes as an unlawful attempt to retroactively punish San José State University for allowing a transgender woman to compete on its women’s volleyball team between 2022 and 2024.
The legal action follows a January 2026 Letter of Findings in which OCR concluded that SJSU violated Title IX by rostering the athlete and permitting her to use team facilities. Along with the findings, OCR issued a proposed resolution agreement that would have required SJSU to, among other things, ban transgender women from all women’s athletic programs, retroactively award individual honors to cisgender female athletes, and issue personalized apology letters to players who competed alongside or against the transgender athlete. The university declined to sign.
“The federal government may not punish the CSU for conduct that complied with binding federal law and the government’s own guidance at the time,” the university system said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
At the heart of the dispute is a question of retroactivity. SJSU argues that during the seasons in question, both the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and OCR itself interpreted Title IX to prohibit discrimination against transgender individuals. The Biden administration’s OCR had explicitly taken that position in guidance documents and rulemaking as recently as 2024. Under those conditions, SJSU contends it would have faced legal liability had it excluded the athlete solely because she was transgender.
In a formal response to OCR dated March 6, attorneys from Munger, Tolles & Olson wrote that “OCR seeks to punish SJSU for abiding by its legal obligations and not for evading them.” The letter noted that when SJSU was sued in 2024 over the same issue, a federal district court found the plaintiffs were unlikely to succeed on their Title IX claims.
OCR’s letter of findings, however, tells a starkly different story. The agency’s investigators documented a deeply divided team, allegations of preferential treatment toward the transgender athlete, and complaints from players, coaches, and parents that women who raised concerns were pressured into silence. The document describes threats—implicit and explicit—that players could lose their scholarships for speaking out, and it found that the university failed to promptly or adequately investigate multiple Title IX complaints it received.
The OCR’s proposed resolution agreement also would have required SJSU to formally adopt a binary definition of sex in all university policies and make a public declaration that “sex is unchangeable”—requirements CSU called ideologically driven overreach.
The Trump administration’s OCR based much of its legal reasoning on two executive orders signed in early 2025 redefining “sex” in federal law. SJSU’s attorneys argue those orders cannot retroactively alter the university’s obligations from 2022 to 2024, and that executive orders alone cannot impose binding conditions on federal grant recipients without congressional authorization.
“The CSU remains unwavering in its commitment to fostering an inclusive, respectful, and safe environment for all students, faculty, and staff—including members of our LGBTQ+ community,” the university system said.
The case adds SJSU to a growing list of universities navigating the collision between shifting federal civil rights enforcement priorities and state laws—like California’s—that explicitly protect transgender students. With the U.S. Supreme Court currently weighing related questions about transgender athletes in Little v. Hecox, the legal landscape is unlikely to stabilize soon.
