By CatholicVote | Created at 2024-11-14 21:26:32 | Updated at 2024-11-21 13:15:52
6 days ago
CV NEWS FEED // Female volleyball players are suing the Mountain West Conference over its Transgender Participation Policy, created after teams protested transgender player Blaire Fleming, a member of San Jose State’s team.
Outkick reports that the lawsuit accuses Mountain West of violating Title IX regulations and the players’ First Amendment rights, claiming the policy aims to “chill and suppress the free speech rights of women athletes.”
The suit seeks emergency injunctive relief before the Mountain West Conference women’s volleyball tournament on November 27.
According to the lawsuit, Mountain West Conference adopted the new policy after Boise State University forfeited a game against San Jose in protest of Fleming’s presence on the roster. Subsequently, five other matches against San Jose were forfeited.
Outkick explains, “The lawsuit thus seeks an injunction and asks for the conference to either disqualify San Jose State from competing in the conference tournament, disqualify Blaire Fleming from competing in the conference tournament, and/or remove the losses from the records of teams who protested by not competing against SJSU – and, subsequently, remove the wins from SJSU.
Several players from four teams that forfeited to San Jose -– Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, and Boise State -– are plaintiffs in the lawsuit. In addition, Fleming’s teammate Brooke Slusser is a plaintiff, as well as San Jose’s suspended associate coach Melissa Batie-Smoose.
Batie-Smoose was suspended shortly after speaking out about Fleming’s presence on the team and filing a Title IX complaint against San Jose State. In the lawsuit, she accuses Fleming of colluding with Colorado player Malayah Jones to throw the match between the two teams and to injure Slusser.
The lawsuit reveals that Fleming and two teammates left their hotel the night before the match, which violates team policy. They allegedly met at Jones’ residence.
The lawsuit reads, “After the SJSU Team got back to campus, student-athlete Chandler Manusky told teammates, including co-captains Alyssa Bjork and Brooke Bryant, that Manusky, Fleming, and [Randilyn] Reeves, had snuck out of the team hotel after hours the night before the [match].”
Manusky said the players “had discussed Fleming ‘throw[ing] the game’ and how they would set up Jones to ‘blow up’ Slusser and ‘blast’ her in the face during the game,” the lawsuit continues.
Co-captains Bjork and Bryant urged Manusky to speak to the coaches about the incident. She did, but allegedly cried when she told the coaches and asked them not to tell Fleming that she reported the incident.
The lawsuit states that San Jose’s head coach, Todd Kress, a defendant in the lawsuit, and Colorado State head coach Emily Kohan, dismissed the incident because they thought the players were “joking.”
However, Batie-Smoose claims in the lawsuit that Kress’ initial reaction was different. The lawsuit states, “Shortly after Manusky left, Todd Kress told Batie-Smoose he did not believe Manusky and believed she had made up the entire story so she would not get in trouble for leaving the team hotel.”
After the match against Colorado state, Kress allowed Fleming and Reeves to stay in Colorado instead of traveling back to San Jose.
The lawsuit continues, “This was highly unusual, and when Batie-Smoose asked why Fleming and Reeves were not traveling back with the team, Kress said that Fleming had asked to stay behind in Colorado.”
Both the lawsuit and the news outlet Outkick have found no evidence that San Jose State investigated the incident, despite the serious nature of allegedly planning to injure a teammate. Outkick has also found no evidence that Fleming, Reeves, or Manusky were punished for violating team rules by leaving the hotel.
Moreover, the lawsuit accuses Kress of favoritism towards Fleming. Batie-Smoose accused Kress of failing to discipline Fleming according to team rules on several occasions.
Batie-Smoose approached Kress about the preferential treatment, and according to the lawsuit, “Kress responded that because of Kress’s alignment with LGBTQ+ individuals, Kress identifies with Fleming and considers Fleming to be facing similar challenges to those Kress believes he has faced.”
The lawsuit continued, “Kress has sought to characterize the positions of women student-athletes at SJSU who do believe Fleming is disqualified by sex from being on the women’s volleyball team as ‘hateful’ and referred to them in disparaging and vile terms.”
The lawsuit also accused Kress of preferential treatment toward Fleming, stating that he promised Elle Patterson a full athletic scholarship to play at San Jose if she transferred from Fairfield University, where both Kress and Batie-Smoose were formerly volleyball coaches.
However, a year after she arrived he provided Fleming with the scholarship and denied Patterson. The lawsuit reads, “After the 2023 season, Todd Kress changed his mind about giving Elle a scholarship and told her that while he would like her to stay on the SJSU team, she would not receive a scholarship during the 2024 season.”
In addition, Fleming missed more games during the 2023 season than Patterson, but Kress still gave the scholarship to Fleming instead.
Kress also allegedly promised Patterson that she could play beach volleyball while playing on San Jose’s indoor volleyball team. Once she arrived, he told her that he didn’t want his players participating in beach volleyball but allowed Fleming to play beach volleyball.
