Batie-Smoose v. The Board of Trustees of the California State University

Background

Plaintiff Melissa Batie-Smoose accepted a position as Associate Head Coach for the women's volleyball team at San Jose State University (SJSU) in January 2023. SJSU is represented in this lawsuit by Defendant The Board of Trustees of the California State University. During her employment, Batie-Smoose learned that one player on the team identifies as a transgender woman. She alleges that the head coach gave the player special privileges and tolerated violations of team conduct rules, and that SJSU administrators instructed staff to keep the player's transgender identity confidential.

SJSU renewed Batie-Smoose's contract on March 1, 2024. That contract required her to support SJSU's commitment to gender equity and its compliance with Title IX — the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in education programs receiving federal funding (20 U.S.C. § 1681). After public reporting about the transgender athlete's participation, Batie-Smoose filed a Title IX complaint with SJSU in October 2024, raising concerns about the player's participation and alleging discrimination against female athletes. She then shared this complaint with the media. SJSU subsequently suspended her for disclosing a student's private information to the media, and around January 31, 2025, declined to renew her contract.

Batie-Smoose filed this lawsuit asserting four claims in her Second Amended Complaint (SAC): (Count I) sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on sex; (Count II) retaliation under Title VII; (Count III) sex discrimination under Title IX; and (Count IV) retaliation under Title IX. The Board of Trustees moved to dismiss all four claims under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.

Legal Standard

To survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, a plaintiff must allege enough facts to make her claim for relief plausible on its face, meaning facts sufficient to raise the right to relief above the speculative level. The court accepts all factual allegations as true and draws all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff's favor, but is not required to accept conclusory statements or unwarranted inferences. No heightened pleading standard applies to Title VII or Title IX claims beyond the ordinary Rule 8 requirement of a short and plain statement showing entitlement to relief.

Title VII Claims (Counts I and II)

Count I — Title VII Sex Discrimination

Title VII makes it unlawful for an employer to discriminate against an employee "because of" sex. Under the Supreme Court's decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, a statutory violation occurs if changing the plaintiff's sex would have yielded a different decision by the employer.

The court acknowledged a threshold question — whether Batie-Smoose exhausted her administrative remedies by filing a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) before suing — but declined to resolve it, because even assuming exhaustion, her discrimination claim fails on the merits.

Batie-Smoose argued that SJSU treated her differently than the head coach (a man) who was not suspended or terminated, thereby showing sex discrimination. The court rejected this argument. It found that, according to Batie-Smoose's own pleading, the head coach was not disciplined because he did not share a student's confidential information with the media — a factual distinction unrelated to sex. The court found that the SAC makes clear her suspension and non-renewal were rooted in her open violation of SJSU's confidentiality instructions, not her sex. Her employment contract expired on January 31, 2025 — the date her employment ended — and her suspension followed her disclosure of student information to the media. The court concluded there was no plausible allegation that her sex was a motivating factor.

Count II — Title VII Retaliation

To state a Title VII retaliation claim (without direct evidence of retaliation), a plaintiff must allege: (1) she engaged in a protected activity; (2) she suffered an adverse employment action; and (3) a but-for causal link exists between the protected activity and the adverse action. "But-for" causation — a stricter standard than for discrimination claims — requires that the protected activity was the reason for the adverse action and that the action would not have occurred without it.

A protected activity under Title VII is either participating in a Title VII proceeding or opposing an employment practice made unlawful by Title VII. The court found that Batie-Smoose did not allege she participated in any Title VII proceeding, and that her alleged opposition did not constitute opposition to an unlawful employment practice under Title VII. The only discrimination she identified was her own suspension and termination — and as discussed under Count I, she did not adequately allege those actions were based on her sex as required by Title VII. Without a plausible allegation of protected activity, the retaliation claim fails at the first element.

Title IX Claims (Counts III and IV)

Count III — Title IX Sex Discrimination

Title IX prohibits recipients of federal education funding from intentionally discriminating against any person on the basis of sex. Courts apply the Title VII framework to Title IX employment discrimination claims. SJSU's receipt of federal education funding — and thus Title IX's applicability — was not disputed.

Because the Title IX sex discrimination claim rested on the same factual allegations as the Title VII sex discrimination claim, the court applied the same analysis. Batie-Smoose's contention that her advocacy for female athletes was "in furtherance of Title IX's core purpose" did not establish that she personally faced adverse employment actions because of her sex. The court found the claim equally deficient.

Count IV — Title IX Retaliation

The court noted an important distinction between Title VII and Title IX retaliation: Title IX's broader language means that a plaintiff need not have been the victim of the underlying sex discrimination she complained about. Retaliation against someone for speaking out about sex discrimination against others can satisfy Title IX's "on the basis of sex" requirement. This means Batie-Smoose's advocacy for female athletes — if it constituted protected opposition to sex discrimination — could theoretically ground a Title IX retaliation claim even though she was not herself the direct victim of that discrimination.

However, the court found that Batie-Smoose still failed to allege that her suspension and non-renewal were caused by that advocacy. Her complaint showed she was suspended for disclosing a student's information to the media — a violation of SJSU's confidentiality instructions and potentially of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA, 20 U.S.C. § 1232g(b)(1)), which prohibits schools from publicly disclosing personally identifiable student information regardless of a student's sex or characteristics. The court noted that sharing the Title IX complaint was incidental to the confidentiality violation. Beyond that disclosure, Batie-Smoose did not allege any other specific actions she took in advocacy that could have caused SJSU to discipline her.

Additional Procedural Matter

Six days after oral argument, Batie-Smoose filed a separate motion seeking leave to file a third amended complaint that would drop her sex discrimination claims under Title VII and Title IX. The court terminated that motion as moot, agreeing with the Board of Trustees that the proposed amendment would add no new facts or legal theories and would simply require re-briefing and re-hearing of the same motion to dismiss.

Conclusion

The motion to dismiss was granted in its entirety, with all four counts dismissed with leave to amend. The court allowed amendment because Batie-Smoose had only once previously amended her complaint, and did so voluntarily. She was given 21 days from the order to file an amended complaint.