Bay Area junior college under investigation by Trump administration over transgender athletes’ participation in sports

Lea el artículo en español aquí.

Santa Rosa Junior College has landed on a list of college systems across the country being targeted for investigation by the Trump administration for allegedly discriminating against women athletes for letting transgender individuals participate in intercollegiate sports.

The 18 institutions on that list, made public Wednesday by the Department of Education, range from K-12 school districts to state departments of education. Outside of SRJC, those in California include three other entities — Santa Monica Junior College and two Southern California school districts.

RELATED: Supporters of Bay Area college volleyball player turn out in droves at rally by anti-trans groups

All were reported to the Department’s Office of Civil Rights for maintaining “policies or practices that discriminate on the basis of sex by permitting students to participate in sports based on their ‘gender identity,’ not biological sex.”

Such policies, asserted the Department of Education, “jeopardize both the safety and the equal opportunities of women in educational programs and activities.”

The investigation announced by the administration is being handled by a special team tasked with Title IX probes and includes the Department of Justice. Title IX is the 1972 federal law that bars discrimination on the basis of sex in education.

Multiple SRJC officials — including Athletic Director Matt Markovich and all eight members of the school’s board of trustees and many coaches — either declined interview requests, deferred requests for comment or did not return messages.

“Santa Rosa Junior College is cooperating with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights Title IX investigation involving the District and is committed to accuracy, transparency, and compliance throughout the process,” a college statement read.

“Providing a safe, respectful, and inclusive environment for students and employees remains central to the College’s work and reflects the District’s institutional values of integrity, equity, accountability, and student success. The District complies with California Community College Athletic Association (3C2A) regulations, which govern student eligibility and participation in our athletic programs.”

Federal officials did not specify Thursday why SRJC, or any other of the named institutions, were under investigation.

But in Santa Rosa’s case, the 108-year-old campus fell under some public scrutiny from anti-transgender interests after its women’s volleyball team this past season included a player reported to be transgender. That athlete’s presence on the roster resulted in three one-time teammates filing a complaint with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

In the complaint, the players — sisters Madison Shaw, a sophomore, and Gracie Shaw, a freshman, and Brielle Galli, all of Windsor — contended that their teammate posed a physical threat to fellow Bear Cubs as well as opponents. Those grievances echoed allegations made in a case that engulfed San Jose State’s women’s volleyball team in 2024.

In a related statement issued Thursday, the Education Department announced that its Title IX team is also investigating the California Community College Athletic Association, the governing body for intercollegiate sports in the state’s community college system.

That association’s Transgender Participation Policy, the department stated, “violates Title IX,” and served, according to Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey, as “a stunning indictment of our culture. Women’s sports are for women.”

The Trump administration, she added, “will not tolerate policies that erase women’s rights.”

While citing a “staggering volume” of Title IX complaints received by the department, the Education Department’s Friday statement cited only one specific example – an apparent but not direct reference to the situation at SRJC.

The California Community College Athletic Association’s policy, said the statement, “resulted in discrimination against at least three female athletes on the basis of sex by allowing a male athlete to participate on the women’s volleyball team at a member college and access locker facilities for women during the 2024 and 2025 seasons.”

The statement did not name the school or affected athletes. The association did not respond to emails and phone calls requesting comment.

Nor did the Department of Education reply Friday to questions from The Press Democrat about the timetable for the investigation, what it will entail, whether representatives of the investigative team will come to campus to conduct interviews, and what consequences SRJC might face.

Heron Greenesmith, deputy director of policy at the Transgender Law Center, a Los Angeles-based advocacy organization, said the investigation is part of a larger, national campaign that infringes on civil rights, not safeguards them.

“Trans people are not just the scapegoats, they are central to right-wing organizing right now,” they said. “The fact that a community college in your community is being investigated for supporting students is so emblematic of the administration right now.”

Agreed, said Shannon Mintor, a lawyer with the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization.

“This is really much more of an attempt to intimidate rather than a legitimate investigation,” he said.

Mintor said documented intimidation tactics, including online targeting and public protests, are typically not directed at institutions but on athletes in question, including young kids and young adults.

“One of the most damaging and harmful aspects is this administration trying to put a spotlight on individual young people, trying to foment almost a mob mentality, encouraging people to harass these young people, invade their privacy, embarrass them, humiliate them,” he said. “It’s really shocking.”

“Whatever anyone thinks about these issues, the debate should not be focused on individual young people.”

Officials representing the Trump administration insist their aim is to protect women and girls participating in sports, though their allies among anti-trans groups and messaging by the Trump campaign harnessed fear and tropes about trans people to ensure the issue would become a dominant and divisive one in last year’s election.

At the center of it all is wildly divergent enforcement, between the current administration and past presidents, of Title IX, which applies to any educational institution receiving federal funds or assistance – broadly public schools, districts and colleges.

Under the Biden administration, it was used in a way that sought to safeguard the rights of LGBTQ individuals on campus.

In Trump’s second term, the law has been used much differently. In February, he issued an executive order titled “Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports,” and his Department of Education has launched investigations into San Jose State and other campuses that have allowed transgender athletes to compete. The NCAA promptly made changes to its policy to limit those competing in women’s sports to individuals assigned female genders at birth.

In a September interview with The Press Democrat, the attorney Shiwali Patel, an expert on Title IX affiliated with the Washington D.C.-based National Women’s Law Center, described the Trump administration’s policy as “a weaponization of Title IX.”

While that law was intended “to broadly protect” educational opportunity for all students, she said, “they’re distorting its purpose and using it to harm trans students, to dehumanize them and erase their civil rights protections.”

She accused the administration of “gutting” the intent of Title IX  “to target an already vulnerable group of students.”

R. Shep Melnick, a Boston College professor and author of the 2018 book “The Transformation of Title IX,” told The Press Democrat that the law “says zero” about the transgender issue.

It wasn’t until 2014, he pointed out, that the Obama administration wrote regulations protecting that group of individuals, who comprise a very small fraction of the athletes who participate in sports in schools and colleges.

“They took an issue that had been left to the discretion of local schools and private institutions and tried to (impose) a national uniformity, on the basis of a civil rights law that said nothing about the issue.”

Trump has taken the Obama and Biden rules on the trans issue, Melnick said, “and stood them on their head. They’re saying this is not discrimination against transgender individuals, it’s discrimination against women in sports.”

Throughout the Bear Cubs’ 2025 women’s volleyball season, which ended in November, players on the squad declined to comment on their singled-out teammate, while appearing to rally around her.

One parent who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution against any players or coaches, told The Press Democrat last fall that school officials had met with players since early September, advising them on safety precautions related to where they park their cars, how they enter and exit buildings and other personal safety measures.

You can reach Staff Writer Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com. On Instagram @kerry.benefield.

You can reach Staff Writer Austin Murphy at austin.murphy@pressdemocrat.com or on X @ausmurph88.

You can reach Staff Writer Gus Morris at 707-304-9372 or gus.morris@pressdemocrat.com. On X @JustGusPD.