San Jose State women’s volleyball players are angry and concerned for their safety after the Spartans’ assistant coach, Melissa Batie-Smoose, was suspended by the university amid the controversy over reports that redshirt senior Blaire Fleming is transgender, team co-captain Brooke Slusser said in an interview with OutKick.
Batie-Smoose was suspended Saturday, less than two hours before the team’s match against New Mexico, after she filed a Title IX complaint earlier that week, claiming SJSU’s transgender-inclusion policy created a toxic environment for female athletes and accused the university of overtly showing favoritism for Fleming, according to a complaint obtained by Quillette.
Slusser — a junior starting setter, who was formerly roommates with Fleming — said she and her team are worried about who will protect their voice after Batie-Smoose’s suspension.
“We aren’t happy and we don’t feel safe anymore,” Slusser said. “Melissa was that person that we felt like as long as she was there, we had someone that would stand up for us. And now there’s no one there that will.”
Todd Kress is the team’s head coach.
Slusser, who previously spoke out about against Fleming after teams began forfeiting matches against SJSU, explained tensions are high within the team.
“I don’t think the school sees how much they just basically ruined this program by taking Melissa away from us,” Slusser said. “So, who knows what’s to come in the future [with regard] to what our team will do or how we will react from this.”
Slusser recalled players getting a text to meet before Saturday’s match.
“None of the coaching staff was at the meeting, it was just the players,” she said. “Some man from the university … sat our team down and said that [Coach Batie-Smoose] has been put on leave, will not be back and players were not supposed to reach out to her or speak to her at all.
“As of right now, tensions are very high for my team with how angry we are now that Melissa’s gone. Emotions are through the roof right now.
“A few girls broke down into tears when we found out and everyone was in shock. Melissa was such a backbone for a lot of us and was that support system a lot of us went to for everything.”
San Jose State defeated New Mexico in four sets on Saturday.
In a statement to OutKick, the university confirmed Batie-Smoose’s suspension but did not provide a reason.
“The associate head coach of the San Jose State University women’s volleyball team is not with the team at this time, and we will not provide further information on this matter,” the university said.
Slusser took aim at the university on social media after the news of Batie-Moose’s suspension.
“My assistant coach spoke truth to protect my team. Then…they fire her,” Slusser wrote on X. “They took away the only safe space we had in the program.Because she knew that it was right to stand up for the 18 women on the team. Not one man.”
Fleming, reportedly a biological male, is a 6-foot outside and right-side hitter and is considered a top player on SJSU’s women’s volleyball team.
Per Quillette, Batie-Smoose filed a 33-page Title IX complaint on Oct. 29 with officials at the California university, the Mountain West Conference and the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA), to investigate (1) the overt favoritism she believes SJSU has shown to Fleming, at the expense of Fleming’s 18 female teammates; and the unsettling measures that SJSU officials have allegedly taken in order to suppress expressions of concern from these affected women.”
Batie-Smoose alleged Fleming conspired with an opponent to help San Jose State lose a match and attempt to injure Slusser.
In the complaint, Batie Smoose explained that Fleming’s physical power stood out — specifically “spiking the [ball] and blocking on the front row, due to Fleming’s leaping ability and hitting power, which far exceeded that of any player in the [Mountain West] Conference.”
Batie-Smoose’s complaint came after Slusser joined several other female athletes in a lawsuit suing the NCAA for violations of its Title IX inclusion of trans athletes in college sports.
The class-action lawsuit was filed in March and funded by the Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS).
Slusser said in the complaint that she lived with Fleming and three other teammates — and that she did not know at first that Fleming is transgender.
Slusser also alleged the SJSU athletic department would assign her to room with Fleming on road trips, and then she later learned that Fleming specifically requested her as a roommate.
OutKick previously reported that San Jose State University hid Fleming’s birth gender for two years.
The situation made headlines when Southern Utah forfeited its match against San Jose State in the Santa Clara Tournament in September.
That sparked a series of forfeits from four other schools — Boise State, Wyoming, Utah State and Nevada — in the weeks that followed.
Fleming played the previous two seasons at San Jose State — after one year with Coastal Carolina in 2020. Fleming also played on the girls’ varsity volleyball team at John Champe High School in Virginia.
In April, Reduxx, a website described as “feminist news and opinion,” published a story claiming Fleming was a biological male with the assigned birth name, Brayden.
