SJSU Athletics (Left), San Jose State Volleyball / Facebook (Right)
CV NEWS FEED // The associate head volleyball coach of a women’s volleyball team at San Jose State University in California was indefinitely suspended on November 2 over her allegations of a transgender player’s misconduct, which included throwing a match and endangering a teammate.
OutKick reported that the school’s decision to suspend Melissa Batie-Smoose followed an interview with Australian Magazine Quillette in which the coach detailed the “toxic environment” that “transgender” athletes create in women’s sports. As CatholicVote previously reported, biological male Blaire Fleming is currently playing on the SJSU women’s volleyball team.
The interview was published in an article on November 1. Batie-Smoose had also filed a Title IX complaint against SJSU earlier the same week.
According to OutKick, SJSU claimed Quillette’s article contained “a number of inaccuracies” and “apparent breaches of student and employee privacy,” resulting in Batie-Smoose’s suspension.
However, Batie-Smoose’s allegations against Fleming are serious. In her interview with Quillette, the coach alleged that Fleming attempted to sabotage an SJSU October 3 game as well as cause harm during the game to Brooke Slusser, one of Fleming’s teammates who has joined a lawsuit against the NCAA for being forced to play with a biological male.
Fleming reportedly met with Malaya Jones, a player from the opposing team, the night before the game. The next day, Batie-Smoose noted that Fleming’s performance during the game was “bizarre,” according to Quillette.
“Fleming defied her coaches’ instructions by allowing Jones an unhindered diagonal hitting lane that exposed Slusser to kills,” Quillette reported. “Batie-Smoose also reports that she repeatedly saw Fleming laughing together with Jones after the latter targeted Slusser in this manner. Fleming’s behaviour was reportedly so strange that even Kress [the team’s head coach] expressed concern, and took Fleming aside for a one-on-one talk.”
Batie-Smoose recalled another incident in the interview.
“[Fleming] sent an over pass,” she said, “perfectly setting up Malaya to kill the ball again in the direction of Brooke Slusser, after [which] Jones blew a kiss toward Fleming and mouthed ‘thank you.’”
Batie-Smoose reportedly found out about the meeting between Fleming and Jones after one of Fleming’s teammates, who went to the meeting but remained anonymous, confessed to the head coach.
SJSU lost the October 3 game. According to OutKick, the game was SJSU’s first after Slusser publicly spoke about her concerns regarding Fleming’s presence on the team, “which led Batie-Smoose to surmise that Fleming conspired with Jones as part of a revenge plot against Slusser.”
“If these allegations are true, they are incredibly serious,” OutKick reported. “Not only would Fleming have thrown a match, Fleming would have knowingly and purposefully endangered a teammate.”
Batie-Smoose spoke to OutKick on November 2, just hours after her suspension. She was told not to talk to the media or any players on the volleyball team but chose to ignore the order.
“This is just another form of what San Jose State has been trying to do — silence people that are speaking up for their First Amendment rights and for what’s right,” she told OutKick on Saturday. “I want to make sure I’m standing strong that only women should be in women’s sports.”
