Utah State University — one of the schools that forfeited a women’s volleyball match against San José State University in protest of a transgender student athlete on its roster — has asked a judge for permission to join a federal lawsuit against the Mountain West Conference challenging its transgender participation policy.
State attorneys representing USU filed a motion to intervene Monday evening. The move came the same day Utah’s top Republican state leaders issued a statement urging the university to join the legal fight on behalf of student athletes who filed the lawsuit, one of whom is a USU student and a co-captain of the university’s women’s volleyball team.
“USU requests intervention to assert and protect its own and its female student-athletes’ interests in preserving women’s athletic opportunities during the MWC women’s volleyball tournament and potential invitation to the NCAA championships,” USU’s motion to intervene states. “If the MWC tournament begins and ends without USU’s intervention and ability to assert its interests in the (preliminary injunction) proceedings, USU’s request will become largely moot.”
The motion says USU’s decision to forfeit the match against SJSU came after a majority of student athletes on the university’s women’s volleyball team indicated in an anonymous survey that they didn’t want to play “due to concerns of fairness” and that they held “strong personal and political beliefs that transgender women should not be permitted to compete in women’s sports.”
“Some of the student athletes indicated that competing against a transgender volleyball student-athlete was dangerous and/or were concerned about their safety,” the motion says.
The decision to forfeit resulted in a loss for USU and a win for SJSU, in line with MWC’s transgender participation policy, which the lawsuit alleges was adopted hastily to punish teams refusing to play SJSU.
“But had USU somehow forced its team to play the match contrary to some team members’ concerns implicating USU’s Title IX obligations, USU would have risked violating Title IX’s provisions and losing federal funding,” USU’s motion to intervene says. “USU has a protected interest in ensuring its compliance with Title IX to maintain continued receipt of an important funding source to help further USU’s mission.”
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The Mountain West Conference shows Utah State is 11 and 5 and San Jose State is 9 and 7 for the 2024 season.
