Girls Sports

DOJ Lawsuit Describes California Department of Education’s Infuriating Treatment of Girls

The Department of Justice (DOJ) describes the California Department of Education (CDE) and the California Interscholastic Federation’s (CIF) infuriating treatment of female athletes in a lawsuit filed yesterday.

The complaint alleges CDE and CIF violated — and continue to violate — Title IX, a federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in federally funded educational institutions and activities, by allowing boys to compete in girls sports and change in girls’ locker rooms.

The court’s ruling will determine whether California remains eligible to receive federal tax dollars. CDE and CIF received more than $44 billion in federal education funding this fiscal year alone, the DOJ reports.

The DOJ’s complaint argues CDE and CIF policies illegally discriminate against and harm girls in two ways: by depriving them of equal athletic opportunities and by creating a hostile educational environment.

The DOJ proves its first claim by identifying five male athletes that competed in California girls sports leagues in 2024 and 2025. Though the suit identifies none by name, the identities of all but one are public knowledge.

The first male athlete listed is AB Hernandez, the boy who infamously won two California girls state track and field titles in May. According to the complaint, Hernandez has been competing in girls events since 2022.

In the 2024-2025 outdoor track and field season, the DOJ estimates Hernandez won “at least 36 first place victories or gold medals” at CIF events.

‘Abigail’ Jones, which the DOJ calls “Student 2,” has been competing in girls track and field and cross country since 2023. In 2025, he took first place in the 100-meter hurdles at the Big VII League Championships.

When Jones transferred to Martin Luther King High School in November 2024, Fox reports, an athlete named Taylor lost her position on the girls varsity cross country team.

When she and a teammate, Kaitlyn, wore “Save Girls Sports” shirts to protest Taylor’s ouster, MLK officials allegedly told them to change or cover up.

“School officials … told [the girls] that wearing the shirts was like ‘wearing a swastika in front of Jewish students,’” the DOJ’s complaint reads, citing the incident as evidence CIF and CDE retaliate against girls who protest boys invading their sports.

‘Lily’ Norcross, “Student 3,” has run girls track and field since 2023. In the 2024-2025 season, Norcross competed in Division 1 CIF events.

Henry Hanlon, “Student 4,” has competed in girls volleyball, basketball and soccer since 2021. When Hanlon, who is notorious for dwarfing his competitors, skipped a basketball game in February, his team lost by 26 points, the New York Post reports.

“Student 5,” an anonymous male who has competed in girls volleyball with Half Moon Bay High School since 2022, led his team to victory at the Peninsula Athletic League volleyball championship in 2024.

The DOJ uses Norcross, “Student 3,” and his effect on girls in Lucia Mar Unified School District to prove its second claim — that CIF and CDE have created a “hostile educational environment” by forcing girls to share locker rooms with boys.

Two athletes came forward at Lucia Mar school board meetings in May and April, respectively, to describe their experience changing in front of Norcross.

“I strongly disagree with what is going on in the girls’ locker room and on the girls track team, so much so that I change in my car for track practice because I feel way more comfortable in my car than I do in my own school’s locker room,” Audrey Venherweg, a junior, told the board in May.

In April, 17-year-old Celeste Duyst tearfully recounted:

I went into the women’s locker room to change for track practice when I saw, at the end of my row, a biological male watching not only myself, but the other young women undress. This experience was beyond traumatizing.

The DOJ uses Duyst’s testimony as an example of the ways co-ed locker rooms “substantially increase the risk of sexual harassment, assault and voyeurism in girls’ locker rooms and bathrooms,” further noting of Norcross:

[Duyst] states [he] had already dressed for track practice at the beginning of the day. [He] had no reason to be in a locker room other than to watch the girls undress.

The DOJ asks the court to find CIF and CDE in violation of Title IX and issue a permanent injunction requiring them to:

  • Keep boys out of girls sports.
  • Implement a monitoring system to ensure all schools and institutions under CIF and CDE’s authority comply with Title XI.
  • “Establish a process to compensate female athletes who have been denied athletic opportunities due to [CDE and CIF’s] violations, including correcting past athletic records.”
  • Submit Title IX compliance reports to the federal government for at least five years following the judgement.

The DOJ also requests the court make CIF and CDE pay punitive damages to the United States, as well as court costs and “an award of all such additional relief as the interests of justice may require.”

Federally funded institutions are supposed to protect the safety and rights of female students. CIF and CDE, in contrast, are actively endangering girls and stifling those trying to stand up for themselves.

The DOJ puts it well:

This discrimination is not only illegal and unfair but also demeaning, signaling to girls that their opportunities and achievements are secondary to accommodating boys.
It erodes the integrity of girls sports, diminishes their competitive experience and undermines the very purpose of Title IX: to provide equal access to education benefits, including interscholastic benefits.

CIF and CDE should not receive a dime more of taxpayers’ money until they agree to uphold their responsibility to the female students whose parents trust them to protect.

The case is United States of America v. California Interscholastic Federation and California Department of Education.

To read more about the conflict between California and the Trump administration, click on the links below.

Additional Articles and Resources

Feds Sue California Department of Education, Interscholastic Federation for ‘Illegal Sex Discrimination’

UPenn Will Strip ‘Lia’ Thomas of Medals, Apologize to Female Athletes

Yes, Girls Care When Boys Take Their Trophies

California Sues DOJ Over ‘Transgender’ Athlete Ban

Feds Pressure California After Boy Wins in Girls Track and Field Championship

Girls Sports Coaches are Incentivized to Recruit Men — Parents Shouldn’t Let Them

Department of Justice Launches Title IX Task Force to Protect Women’s Sports

Girls Shouldn’t Apologize for Protesting Boys in Girls Sports

Trump Signs Executive Order Protecting Women’s Sports and Spaces

President Trump: ‘There are Only Two Genders: Male and Female’

Feds Sue California Department of Education, Interscholastic Federation For ‘Illegal Sex Discrimination’

The Department of Justice (DOJ) sued the California Department of Education (CDE) and California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) yesterday for violating Title IX,  just two days after the institutions refused to voluntarily keep boys out of girls sports and locker rooms.

The suit is the latest in an escalating national battle over the meaning and intent of Title IX — and whether taxpayers must fund educational programs that fail to protect girls.

“The Governor of California has previously admitted that it is ‘deeply unfair’ to force women and girls to compete with men and boys in competitive sports,” Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote in a press release announcing the suit, referencing remarks California Governor Gavin Newsom made about girls sports in March.

“But not only is it ‘deeply unfair,’ it is also illegal under federal law,” she continued. “This Department of Justice will continue its fight to protect equal opportunities for women and girls in sports.”

Title IX prevents sex discrimination in educational institutions and activities supported by the federal government. Despite receiving more than $44 billion in federal funding this fiscal year, according to the DOJ, CIF and CDE continue to violate Title IX by allowing students to join sports leagues consistent with their “gender identity,” rather than their biological sex.

“The results of these illegal policies are stark,” the DOJ’s complaint reads. “Girls are displaced from podiums, denied awards and miss out on critical visibility for college scholarships and recognition.”

It continues:

This discrimination is not only illegal and unfair but also demeaning, signaling to girls that their opportunities and achievements are secondary to accommodating boys.
It erodes the integrity of girls’ sports, diminishes their competitive experience and undermines the very purpose of Title IX: to provide equal access to educational benefits, including interscholastic athletics.

California and the Trump administration have been on a collision course over the integrity of girls’ sports and spaces since February, when President Donald Trump signed executive orders protecting women’s private spaces and prohibiting boys from playing girls sports in programs that receive federal funding.

The DOE launched an investigating into CIF after it publicly refused to follow the president’s order “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.” Instead, CIF told Fox on February 7 it would continue enforcing California Education Code Section 221.5(f), which reads:

A pupil shall be permitted to participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, and use facilities consistent with his or her gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on the pupil’s records.

CIF hit the Trump administration’s radar again in May when AB Hernandez, a boy, qualified for California’s girls track and field championships.

“California … continues to illegally allow men to play in women’s sports,” President Trump weighed in on Hernandez’ qualification on social media. “Please be hereby advised that large scale funding will be held back, maybe permanently, if the executive order [“Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports”] is not adhered to.”

Hernandez went on to win two girls’ state titles.

The DOE Office of Civil Rights’ investigation found CIF and CDE in active violation of Title IX on June 25. The organizations were given ten days to voluntarily:

  • Instruct all recipients of federal funding under their control to stop allowing boys to compete in girls sports.
  • Rescind all awards, titles and records given to males and, if applicable, award them to the real winners.
  • “Send a personalized letter [to each female athlete to whom an individual recognition is restored] apologizing on behalf of the state of California for allowing her educational experience to be marred by sex discrimination.”
  • Propose a monitoring system to ensure all recipients of federal funding are following Title IX.

CIF and CDE formally refused the DOE’s requests on July 7. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon promptly referred the case to the DOJ, which filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on July 9.

If the court rules in favor of the DOJ, CIF and CDE would have to keep boys out of girls sports or risk losing their massive federal endowment.

“It’s totally unfair to have men competing against women in sports, and also to share their intimate locker facilities [with them],” McMahon told Fox yesterday, continuing:

Women fought hard for these rights. It is the law, and the president means business with it.

The case is United States of America v. California Interscholastic Federation and California Department of Education. You can read the Daily Citizen’s detailed analysis of the allegations here.

Additional Articles and Resources

UPenn Will Strip ‘Lia’ Thomas of Medals, Apologize to Female Athletes

Yes, Girls Care When Boys Take Their Trophies

California Sues DOJ Over ‘Transgender’ Athlete Ban

Feds Pressure California After Boy Wins in Girls Track and Field Championship

Girls Sports Coaches are Incentivized to Recruit Men — Parents Shouldn’t Let Them

Department of Justice Launches Title IX Task Force to Protect Women’s Sports

Girls Shouldn’t Apologize for Protesting Boys in Girls Sports

Trump Signs Executive Order Protecting Women’s Sports and Spaces

President Trump: ‘There are Only Two Genders: Male and Female’

SJSU Hired Same Law Firm to Simultaneously Defend and Investigate Male Athlete on Women’s Team

San Jose State University (SJSU) hired the same law firm to simultaneously defend a male student’s right to play women’s volleyball and investigate him for misconduct against his teammates, Fox’s Brian Thompson reported yesterday.

Willkie Farr & Gallagher attorneys represented the Mountain West Conference in November against twelve women requesting a federal court court ban SJSU volleyball player Blaire Fleming, a man, from the conference championships.

The plaintiffs included SJSU volleyball’s co-captain Brooke Slusser and former associate head coach Melissa Batie-Smoose, whom SJSU suspended after she filed a separate Title IX complaint against the school.

Willkie announced its “high-profile win” on its website on November 27 after Judge Kato Crews ruled against the women.

While some Willkie attorneys worked on defending Fleming’s presence in a women’s volleyball game, another was investigating Fleming’s alleged misconduct against Slusser.

Slusser began playing with SJSU in Fall 2023. Unaware of his true sex, Slusser lived with Fleming on campus and often shared rooms with him while traveling. After discovering Fleming was male from other SJSU students, Slusser and some of her teammates raised concerns about his participation on the team.

Tension on the team came to a head in an October game against Colorado State University. A now infamous video shows Fleming set the ball for Malayla Jones, a CSU player, to spike the ball at Slusser.

After the play, Jones appears to blow a kiss at Fleming.

Batie-Smoose claims she clocked Fleming’s bizarre behavior early in the game.

“In set one, I called blocking,” Batie-Smoose told Fox News Digital last year. “[Fleming] was not looking at me, would not even give me eye contact when [he] kept setting up the block wrong [and] didn’t follow the game plan.”

Fleming’s errors became so egregious, Batie-Smoose recalls, that she told head coach Todd Kress, “I know this sounds crazy, but I think [he’s] throwing the match and [he’s] definitely not listening to a word I’m saying about blocking.”

Batie-Smoose witnessed the interaction between Fleming and Jones and waited for Kress to pull Fleming from the game — but he never did. Instead, she heard him telling an assistant coach, “This is so horrible for Blaire, all this stuff is taking such a toll on Blaire, I feel for [him].”

After the game, Batie-Smoose learned that Fleming and another SJSU teammate had allegedly visited Jones’ dorm the night before the game. Another teammate had received a social media message warning SJSU players to keep their distance from Slusser.

Slusser recalled of the message:

[It] basically [said] that my teammates needed to keep their distance from me on gameday against Colorado State, because it wasn’t going to be a good situation for me to be in.

Batie-Smoose filed a Title IX complaint making these allegations public on October 29. On November 12, SJSU launched an investigation into the incident headed up by Tim Heaphy — an attorney at Willkie.

Heaphy closed the investigation in just three days, concluding there was insufficient evidence to find Fleming guilty of wrongdoing. The official statement concluding the investigation misdates the initial incident, Fox’s Thompson notes — an ironic error for an ostensibly thorough probe.

Notably, Slusser and Batie-Smoose did not consent for Heaphy to interview them.

Some might chalk Willkie’s involvement in defending and investigating Fleming up to the Mountain West Conference retaining a single law firm. But Heaphy, at least, seems sympathetic to men competing in women’s sports.

On February 6, the Department of Education (DOE) announced an investigation into SJSU for violating Title IX. According to emails reviewed by Thompson, Heaphy offered to defend SJSU from the inquiry. Dustin Mays, head counsel for California State University and San Jose State University, allegedly turned him down.

DID YOU KNOW?
Judge Crews based his dismissal of Slusser and company, in part, because of the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Bostock v. Clayton County, a damaging opinion finding “sex discrimination” under Title VII included discrimination against “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.”

Importantly, Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the majority, specifically clarified the court’s interpretation of “sex” in Bostock only applied to Title VII. Crews’ decision to cite favorable court precedent, omitting the Supreme Court’s caveat and other precedent finding Title IX does not protect discrimination against “gender identity” betrays dangerous bias.

The sentiment likely extends beyond Heaphy. Willkie has deleted its post announcing the firm’s successful defense of Mountain West and, by extension, Fleming. The scrubbed document notably refers to Fleming as a “transgender woman” and repeats highly suspect legal reasoning from Judge Crews concluding legal precedent establishes “‘sex’ under Title IX’s prohibitions includes discrimination based on an individual’s trans status or sexual orientation.’”

Perhaps most importantly, Willkie’s involvement in both cases further illustrates the web of secrecy and corruption surrounding Fleming’s participation in women’s volleyball. Slusser, Batie-Smoots and the other women in this case endured physical and financial retaliation to bring Fleming and SJSU’s misconduct to light.

Yet Fleming, for all intents and purposes, was allowed to come out on top. He continued playing women’s volleyball and graduated SJSU in May.

Slusser had to leave campus to finish her degree at home.

At least two other athletes lost scholarships and starting positions on SJSU’s volleyball and beach volleyball teams.

Batie-Smoots was fired in January.

SJSU’s prioritization of Fleming over the physical wellbeing and advancement of women is egregious and unjust. Please pray the DOE’s ongoing investigation will provide some relief to those that have been victimized.

Additional Articles and Resources

Yes, Girls Care When Boys Take Their Trophies

NCAA and San Jose State ‘Transgender’ Volleyball Player Usurp Women’s Rights

San Jose Coach Suspended for Filing Discrimination Complaint Against Transgender Player

Four Women’s Volleyball Teams Forfeit — Won’t Play Team with a Man

The Bostock Slippery Slope: Girls Who Think They’re Boys Must Be Allowed to Use High School Boys’ Restroom, Appeals Court Rules

Appeals Courts Affirm Rulings Stopping the DOE’s Rewrite of Title IX

Women’s Basketball and the Death of Femininity

Tuesday night’s WNBA contest between the Indiana Fever and the Connecticut Sun deteriorated into a shoving, punching and poking match that resulted in three ejections and countless hard feelings.

Indiana’s Caitlin Clark, who had returned to the lineup after time on the disabled list, was the target of much of the aggression. 

In the third quarter, the Sun’s Jacy Sheldon poked Clark in the eye, and Marina Mabry shoved her to the floor. The Fever’s Sophie Cunningham came to Clark’s defense. In the fourth quarter, Sheldon was then fouled hard by Cunningham. 

Cunningham, Sheldon and Linsay Allen, another player for the Sun, were all ejected.

Fever head coach Stephanie White told reporters the referees failed to properly deal with the unhealthy aggression.

“I started talking to the officials in the first quarter and we knew this was going to happen,” she said. “You could tell it was going to happen. So they’ve got to get control of it, they’ve got to be better.”

Fans of Clark, the former Iowa All-American, have lamented that the Fever phenom has been bullied and targeted since arriving in the WNBA. Many feel like she hasn’t been properly or adequately defended by her teammates – until Cunningham’s performance on Tuesday night.

As video of Cunningham’s defense went viral, the 28-year-old Fever guard began to trend on social media. Since Tuesday night, she’s gained over 530,000 new followers on Tik Tok.

Women have been playing basketball since 1892, just a year after the sport was invented. The women may have looked very different back in the beginning, but the aggression was still present. Female basketball players wore floor length dresses. According to basketball historians, hair pins and handkerchiefs were often strewn about on the court after a game.

Women who played those early games of basketball often pulled hair and shoved and pushed one another. In fact, the Los Angeles Times once wrote a story about the behavior and titled the story, “Sweet Things Have Scrap.”

Enter Agnes Rebecca Wayman in the early 1900s.

A pioneer in women’s physical education, Agnes Wayman expressed concern that the sport was becoming too masculine. To address these issues, the educator proposed and pushed for the passage of several new rules:

Female players were required to 1) have neatly combed hair, 2) not chew gum, 3) never use profanity or slang, 4) never call each other by their last name and 5) not lie or sit on the ground.

Scripture is silent on women in sports, but it has a lot to say about femininity in a broader scope. We read in Genesis that women were created because God said it wasn’t good for man to be alone (Gen. 2:18).  By no means does this mean women are weak. In fact, the Bible highlights many strong females who God used in might ways. There was Deborah (Judges 4:4), Esther, Ruth – and of course, Jesus’ mother Mary. 

Women’s basketball isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but the WNBA would be wise to recruit another woman like Agnes Wayman to help reform and reimagine an increasingly hostile and aggressive sport. 

As a mother or father, would you want your daughter being targeted and slammed to the ground while playing a basketball game? Of course not. Wayman once wrote, “Many a mother objects to having her girl play basketball or enter into athletic competition of any kind because she claims it makes her daughter unladylike, careless in dress and habits and speech.”

The physical education and women’s basketball reformer concluded that changes were necessary because “Girls are more delicately adjusted than boys.” She also correctly stated, “The athletic girl has come to stay. Athletics for women are no longer a fad but a well-recognized factor in the better development of women and, incidentally, of the race.”

This is still the case, which is why the WNBA better get their act together – and quickly.

California Sues DOJ Over ‘Transgender’ Athlete Ban

California is suing the Justice Department over its demand the state prohibit male athletes from competing in women’s and girls sports.

The lawsuit retaliates against letters sent to California school districts by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon last week, ordering them to certify the ban “in writing” because “knowingly depriving female students of athletic opportunities and benefits on the basis of their sex would constitute unconstitutional sex discrimination under the Equal Protection Clause.”

“Defendants have no right to make such a demand,” the California lawsuit states. It continues:

Instead, allowing athletic participation consistent with students’ gender identity is substantially related to the important government interests of affording all students the benefits of an inclusive school environment, including participation in school sports, and preventing the serious harms that transgender students would suffer from a discriminatory, exclusionary policy.

Of course, the lawsuit makes no mention of the “serious harms” to women that result from males competing in their sports.

This heated pushback is occurring despite President Trump’s recent executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.”

This February order explains that males competing in women’s sports is “demeaning, unfair, and dangerous to women and girls, and denies women and girls the equal opportunity to participate and excel in competitive sports.”

The order later states:

It is the policy of the United States to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy. 

It shall also be the policy of the United States to oppose male competitive participation in women’s sports more broadly, as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta argues this presidential executive order violates California antidiscrimination laws, including California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) rules.

The CIF governs California public and private school sports. It contains a bylaw that forces “gender identity” recognition “in a manner that is consistent with their gender identity, irrespective of the gender listed on a student’s records.”

However, Julie Hamill, principal attorney with California Justice Center, is adamant that the U.S. Constitution provides protection for biologically female athletes – rights that California is violating by “allowing males into ‘girls only’ categories.”

Permitting males to compete in women’s and girls sports also violates Title IX, a federal civil rights law enacted in 1972 which prohibits sex discrimination in education programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.

Hamill stated, “By continuing to fan flames of division and play politics, leftist politicians and media outlets are causing further harm to American girls.”

This was especially evident in May when female athletes were forced to share their podium with AB Hernandez, a male, at the California State Track and Field Championships. 

“Watching two girls share one of the biggest moments of their athletic careers with a male competitor was a painful reminder of how far we’ve strayed from truth and fairness,” said Sophia Lorey, outreach director at California Family Council.

“What I witnessed at the California State Track and Field Championships was not progress, it was the erasure of girls sports,” she continued.

Focus on the Family couldn’t agree more. California’s lawsuit seems intent upon harming countless young girls and their rights, while protecting men pretending to be women. This unfair policy not only strips female athletes of their hard-earned achievements but also violates their basic human rights as women.

Please pray California’s lawsuit is defeated in court.

Related Articles and Resources

Transgender Resources

What is “Gender Identity?”

Addressing Gender Identity with Honesty and Compassion

Feds Pressure California After Boy Wins in Girls Track and Field Championship

Department of Justice Launches Title IX Task Force to Protect Women’s Sports

Girls Shouldn’t Apologize for Protesting Boys in Girls Sports

Trump Signs Executive Order Protecting Women’s Sports and Spaces

Female Athletes Challenge Minnesota Policy Forcing Them to Compete Against Males