Former San Jose State University associate head volleyball coach Melissa Batie-Smoose returned to federal court on Oct. 13 with a new complaint accusing California State University trustees and 11 university employees, including head coach Todd Kress, of hostile treatment, disparate discipline, and retaliation tied to her support for Donald Trump, her religious objections to a transgender athlete on the women’s team, and a Title IX complaint she filed in late 2024.
Fox News Digital’s OutKick reported the filing in the Northern District of California after a Sept. 4 dismissal of her prior amended complaint, which had asserted discrimination and retaliation under Title VII and Title IX. Judge Noël Wise gave her leave to amend within 21 days. The new case seeks reinstatement or a comparable job, back pay, compensatory and punitive damages, legal fees, a jury trial, and correction of adverse personnel records.
At stake is more than one coaching career. The dispute sits inside a multi-year fight over sex-separated athletics, campus discipline, federal Title IX enforcement, and whether coaches who object to male-bodied athletes on women’s teams face unequal punishment when they speak up.
Batie-Smoose worked with Kress at Florida State in 2006 and at Fairfield University from 2019 to 2022 before taking the SJSU associate head coach post and moving her family from Connecticut to California in January 2023. Her filing claims Kress knew she was a Republican who had voted for Trump and used that knowledge to damage her standing with players.
The complaint states that Kress mocked her politics in front of athletes.
"Kress would also berate her during practice in front of the athletes, calling her ‘Trump-loving’ or a ‘Trump lover’ and mocking her political affiliation,"
She also alleges she repeatedly told Kress, “in substance,” that “God made man and woman” and that her beliefs prevented her from treating a male athlete as female. The filing says he reacted with hostility to those religious objections to transgender athlete Blaire Fleming’s participation on the women’s team and made her feel “physically unsafe” in some interactions. It further claims he “cornered, yelled at, and berated her,” excluded her from meetings, and reduced her coaching duties.
An alleged August 2023 office confrontation followed a canceled recruiting visit disrupted by a hurricane. Batie-Smoose says she reported the episode to athletics HR and an administrator, was told Kress was her boss and she needed to listen, and saw no discipline for him. She also alleges she reported Kress berating athletes to an administrator identified as Alexander and that, upon information and belief, he again faced no discipline.
On Oct. 29, 2024, Batie-Smoose submitted a Title IX complaint. Days later, on Nov. 2, the university placed her on paid administrative leave, blocked her from Spartan Gym about 90 minutes before a home match, and required her to surrender her ID and keys. A suspension letter referenced a complaint against her dated Oct. 24. That complaint, as described in her filing, included allegations of differential treatment based on protected status, disclosure of confidential student information, drinking with athletes during team travel, unprofessional or insubordinate conduct, inappropriate language, and failure or refusal to coach athletes.
She denies improperly disclosing records. She acknowledges a drink in an airport lounge with adult players present but says she neither purchased nor encouraged their drinks. She also denies inappropriate language or refusing to coach and contests the university’s findings.
On Jan. 31, 2025, athletics director Jeff Konya notified her that her temporary coaching appointment would not be renewed, in a letter issued on behalf of President Cynthia Teniente-Matson. In April, Cisco College announced her as head volleyball coach.
The new lawsuit frames the leave and nonrenewal as pretext and retaliation after her Title IX complaint, and as part of a pattern of harsher treatment than Kress received. It cites older public reporting that a former Fairfield player accused Kress of a 1998 hotel-room assault and alleges that former player notified SJSU in October 2024. The filing states:
"Plaintiff is further informed and believes, based on public reporting, that Defendant took no further action following this correspondence, and that Kress continued to coach and travel with the SJSU women’s volleyball team without interruption or restriction. Plaintiff alleges that Defendant’s handling of this report is consistent with, and corroborates, the pattern of disparate treatment against Plaintiff alleged throughout this Complaint,"
Judge Wise’s Sept. 4 order rejecting the earlier amended complaint cut against Batie-Smoose’s first theory of the case. The judge wrote that the complaint supported discipline for a confidentiality-law violation, not for opposing sex discrimination.
"Plaintiff’s complaint supports that she was disciplined for violating a confidentiality law, not for opposing discrimination on the basis of sex,"
Separate litigation by female players and the coach has tracked the same roster fight. National Review reported that female SJSU volleyball players and an assistant coach sued over a male athlete joining the women’s team, alleging lost privacy and scholarship opportunities, physical-harm risk, pressure to stay silent, and constitutional injuries. Defendants in that action included the Mountain West Conference, the CSU system, the head coach, and administrators.
Breitbart reported claims in the players’ case that Fleming received a scholarship that displaced female players, that former player Elle Patterson quit after losing her scholarship and roster spot, and that the suit alleged Fleming plotted to leave center court open so an opposing player could hit Brooke Slusser in the face with the ball. A Colorado federal judge in March dismissed the Mountain West defendants, finding the conference not subject to Title IX and not a state actor for constitutional claims, and dismissed several claims against university officials while deferring other Title IX damages issues.
The New York Post reported on Batie-Smoose’s employment claims that her suspension and January termination were retaliation for her Title IX complaint about Fleming, including alleged favoritism and withheld knowledge of birth gender. That account also described her difficulty finding new work and her request for damages, reinstatement, back pay, and injunctive relief aimed at keeping biologically female athletes from having to compete against transgender athletes. One filing passage charged that punishing coaches for raising fairness concerns harms advocates and chills Title IX enforcement.
Just The News reported additional claim detail that Batie-Smoose personally observed Fleming fail to block as required and wink at an opposing player, which she cast as consistent with a pre-game plan to endanger co-captain Slusser, and that the head coach allegedly allowed Fleming rule violations without discipline while punishing female athletes more strictly.
CSU has disputed the federal comparison of the two coaches. In its own March 6 suit against the Education Department, CSU argued the coaches were not similarly situated, said Batie-Smoose disclosed protected information, and stated its investigation found insufficient evidence Kress retaliated against Slusser. CSU also said a university investigation found Batie-Smoose discriminated against Fleming because of sex and gender identity, a finding she contests. CSU maintains that protecting transgender students and following then-governing rules and NCAA guidance for the 2022, 24 seasons did not equal unlawful sex discrimination, and it challenged federal procedures and conclusions while declining a proposed resolution agreement.
On Jan. 28, 2026, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights issued a findings letter concluding SJSU violated Title IX in athletic participation, sex-separated facilities, and handling of discrimination complaints. OCR also flagged compliance concerns on employment and scholarships, evidence indicative of unequal treatment, and record gaps. Personnel investigations involving Batie-Smoose and Kress opened Nov. 12, 2024. The letter questioned why the university suspended her but not him, noted investigator observations that Kress “crossed the FERPA line in his interview with ESPN,” and pointed to internal records suggesting officials worried that suspending Kress could “spark more media attention” and “unduly disrupt the team.”
Federal officials threatened enforcement that could put funding at risk. A March 31 court order established protections against funding disruption based on the challenged findings while CSU’s suit proceeded.
Policy ground shifted around the same period. After a Trump executive order, the NCAA on Feb. 6, 2025, changed policy to restrict women’s team competition to athletes assigned female at birth, while permitting practice under specified conditions for athletes assigned male at birth. On June 30, 2026, the Supreme Court upheld challenged restrictions in West Virginia and Idaho cases, stating that Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause permit schools to reserve female teams based on biological sex, while leaving unresolved whether schools may still allow transgender women and girls on female teams.
SJSU declined to discuss the new case. A university spokesperson said, "Due to pending litigation, San Jose State is unable to comment," CSU’s spokesperson said the system was not commenting, had learned of the lawsuit the day before, and was still reviewing the claims.
No public docket caption or full list of all 11 employee-defendants beyond Kress appears in the reporting summarized here. Investigators and the court will need to test whether the leave, campus ban, nonrenewal, and personnel findings were legitimate responses to confidentiality and conduct charges, or pretext for political, religious, and Title IX-protected objections. They will also need to weigh OCR’s disparity findings against CSU’s position that the coaches were not similarly situated and that Batie-Smoose disclosed protected information.
Batie-Smoose asks the Northern District of California to restore her record and her place in the profession. CSU asks courts to reject federal punishment for roster decisions it says matched the rules then in force. Female athletes in related cases ask for privacy, safety, and scholarship interests they say the university discounted. Each track turns on the same core question: whether women’s sports and the people who defend sex-based categories get equal process when they object.
When universities punish the coach who talks and protect the system that stayed quiet, Title IX becomes a slogan instead of a shield, and women’s sports pay the price.
