A Bay Area university is once again a flashpoint for the Trump administration’s battle over transgender athletes in school sports. 

On Wednesday, the Department of Education issued the findings of its nearly year-long investigation into San Jose State University. The department found that SJSU violated Title IX by discriminating against women through “allowing males to compete in women’s sports and access female-only facilities.” 

SJSU came into the focus of the Department of Education due to the university’s Women’s volleyball team in recent years, after a lawsuit was filed alleging that one of the players on the team was transgender and multiple opposing teams forfeited their matches against San Jose State. 

The Department of Education said it is offering San Jose State a deal to “resolve” all of the Title IX violations if the university:

• Issues a statement to the SJSU community adopting the Trump administration’s definitions of ‘male’ and ‘female,’ and “and acknowledge that the sex of a human – male or female – is unchangeable.”
• Separate sports and “intimate facilities” based on “biological sex.”
• Does not contract with anyone who discriminates on the basis of sex. 
• Restore athletic records and titles the Department of Education said were “misappropriated” due to male athletes competing in women’s categories, and issue a personalized apology letter to each impacted athlete
• Send an apology to the school’s female volleyball players from certain years and to any women on teams that forfeited to SJSU rather than compete. 

The University said it is going over the department’s findings as well as the proposed resolution agreement. 

“We remain committed to providing a safe, respectful, and inclusive educational environment for all students while complying with applicable laws and regulations,” the university said in a statement. 

California law requires K through 12 schools to allow transgender athletes to compete, but the rules are less clear for college athletes.

“San Jose State is in between a rock and a hard place at this point,” said legal analyst Steven Clark. “What they need to decide now is: do they want to take the Trump administration to court? or capitulate to these orders handed down by the Department of Education.”

Clark explained that the legal battle against the Trump administration would likely be costly, and if SJSU chooses to fight this, they risk losing federal university funding. 

“The Trump administration has the power of the purse strings over San Jose State on this issue, so this becomes very challenging,” Clark continued. 

Clark also noted that the U.S. Supreme Court is slated to rule this year on a case regarding transgender athletes in women’s and girls’ sports. He said that SJSU may try to wait out their next move until that decsion comes down.