WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has concluded that San Jose State University discriminated against women by letting a transgender athlete play on the women’s volleyball team, the U.S. Education Department said Wednesday.
The department offered San Jose State a deal that would resolve the case. The university, located in California, would have to accept the administration’s definition of “male” and “female,” restore titles and records that Trump officials say were “misappropriated by male athletes,” and issue an apology to female athletes.
A statement from the university said officials are reviewing the proposal and “remain committed to providing a safe, respectful, and inclusive educational environment for all students while complying with applicable laws and regulations.”
The Education Department has taken action against a series of states, schools and colleges that allow transgender athletes, something President Donald Trump has promised to end. If San Jose State rejects the proposed deal, it could face a Justice Department lawsuit and risk losing federal funding.
The investigation into San Jose State was opened in February alongside a similar one at the University of Pennsylvania. Penn later agreed to a deal similar to the one being offered to San Jose State, modifying school records set by transgender swimmer Lia Thomas and apologizing to other athletes on the swim team.
Department officials said San Jose State violated Title IX, a 1972 gender equity law, by allowing a transgender athlete on the team and for allegedly retaliating against players who condemned the decision.
“We will not relent until SJSU is held to account for these abuses and commits to upholding Title IX to protect future athletes from the same indignities,” Kimberly Richey, assistant secretary for civil rights at the Education Department, said in a statement.
San Jose State’s volleyball team attracted national attention after nine student athletes in the Mountain West Conference athletic conference filed a lawsuit challenging the league’s policies allowing transgender athletes to compete. The players argued that it’s unfair and poses a safety risk.
Several teams refused to play against San Jose State, earning losses.
San Jose State has not confirmed that its volleyball team had a transgender player.
As part of the deal proposed by the administration, San Jose State would have to send a personalized apology to every woman who played on the women’s indoor volleyball team from 2022 through 2024 and on the 2023 beach volleyball team, and to any woman who forfeited rather than play San Jose State.
This story has been corrected to reflect that the lawsuit against the league was filed by nine student athletes in the Mountain West Conference athletic conference, not players on the San Jose State volleyball team.
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FILE - An exterior view of San Jose State University is seen, June 30, 2011, in San Jose, Calif. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)
LONDON (AP) — Israel will close the British consulate in Jerusalem in response to U.K. sanctions on West Bank settlements, the country's foreign minister said Tuesday.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced the move as part of a series of countermeasures against the U.K. for its decision to ban trade with the Israeli settlements.
In a statement, Sa’ar said Israel would also expel U.K. representatives from a joint military center monitoring the Gaza ceasefire and end U.K. training of the Palestinian Authority’s security forces in the West Bank. In addition, Israel will prevent the entry into Israel of 12 elected U.K. officials, as well as other British citizens Sa’ar said were “involved in antisemitic and anti-Israel activity.”
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
LONDON (AP) — The United Kingdom on Tuesday banned trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, where it says “settler terrorists” are carrying out “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians.
Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said the U.K. will ban imports of all goods from the settlements and bar companies from providing services for the settlements, including financing, construction, infrastructure, real estate and advertising. He said France and Canada would also ban trade in goods from settlements.
“I do not believe the British people want us supporting the occupation by accepting products from settlements in our shops and supermarkets," Miliband said.
The economic impact is likely to be limited, since the settlements produce only a small amount of largely agricultural exports. But the move is a symbolic expression of displeasure with Israel by some of its closest allies, and new sign of its growing isolation as a result of the Gaza war.
Miliband said that he feels “a deep sense of shame about what has unfolded in Palestine under the eyes of the international community.”
“We will not acquiesce in the destruction of the two-state solution,” he said.
Under the ultranationalist government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, settlement construction in the West Bank — seized by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war — has surged. Netanyahu’s government views the West Bank as the biblical and historical homeland of the Jewish people and is opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state.
The international community overwhelmingly considers such construction to be illegal and an obstacle to peace. Britain and other countries have voiced particular concern about the E1 settlement project approved by Israel, which would effectively cut the territory in two. Palestinians and rights groups say it could destroy hopes for a future Palestinian state.
There have been marked increases in attacks by settlers on Palestinians, evictions from Palestinian towns, Israeli military operations and checkpoints that choke freedom of movement, as well as several Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
”The British government agrees that there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank, perpetrated by settler terrorists,” Miliband said. He said there had been “houses bulldozed, roads and public infrastructure destroyed, families displaced from their homes.”
The ban on trade will be in place in six to nine months, Miliband said. He said Canada and France will also announce a ban on goods from Israeli settlements, while Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Poland, Portugal and Sweden have pledged to “support further action.”
The Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, Spain and Norway have either banned goods from settlements or are in the process of doing so, he said.
Miliband also tightened Britain’s embargo on weapons sales to Israel for use in Gaza to include arms “that materially contribute to the occupation” of Palestinian territories.
The United Kingdom, a longtime ally of Israel, recognized Palestinian statehood last year in an attempt to revive dwindling efforts to achieve a two-state solution.
The center-left Labour Party government has previously sanctioned some Israeli settlers and illegal outposts over violence against Palestinians and illegal development in the West Bank.
In a change of Britain’s position, Miliband said Tuesday that the U.K. regards Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, and not just the settlements, as illegal.
The tougher stance is likely to be welcomed by many Labour voters and lawmakers, who have urged the government to go further in sanctioning Israel and supporting the Palestinians.
But some Labour members expressed concern that the sanctions could boost support for Netanyahu, who is facing a tough battle for reelection in October, or lead to attacks on British Jews.
Opposition Conservative Party foreign affairs spokesman Tom Tugendhat said that "turning Israel into a pariah will risk sectarian division in own country and risk a further rise in antisemitic violence on our own streets.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog called the ban “a grave miscalculation, a decision that will fall on the wrong side of history.
“In the current context, it would be a gross interference in the democratic elections of a sovereign nation,” he said.
Senior Israeli ministers also condemned the U.K. government’s position before the actual announcement was made. Foreign Minister Gideon Saar warned that “if Britain acts against Israel, Israel will act against Britain.”
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s hard-line public security minister and a settler leader, called on Netanyahu to recognize Argentina’s claim to the Falkland Islands, a British overseas territory in the South Atlantic known in Argentina as Islas Malvinas.
The move was also criticized by the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, a longtime supporter of the settlements, who said that it was “discrimination against the Jewish people.” He said the U.K. could face “repercussions or retaliations” from the U.S. if it imposed the sanctions.
Several U.S. states have laws banning contracts or investments with businesses that boycott Israeli firms, including those based in the West Bank. U.S. Rep. Randy Fine, a Florida Republican, said in a post on social media that the U.K. ban could put at risk “billions of dollars” in trade between British businesses and Florida.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s office said he spoke with U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday and set out “the U.K.’s commitment to working toward peace and security in the region” and achieving a two-state solution. There was no word on how Trump responded.
Associated Press writers Sylvia Hui in London and Megan Mineiro in Jerusalem contributed.
FILE - Britain's Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband speaks during a press conference in Madrid, Spain, on July 29, 2026. (Leon Neal/Pool Photo via AP, File)
