International
Multiple women’s college volleyball teams forfeit matches rather than face male opponent
From LifeSiteNews
Southern Utah, Boise State, and Wyoming universities forfeited women’s volleyball matches against San José State over the inclusion of a male on the female team, sparking Christian non-profit Concerned Women for America to launch a lawsuit against San José State.
Both Southern Utah University (SUU) and Boise State University’s (BSU) female volleyball teams made the decision to refuse competing against a team with a male-born player.
San José State University’s (SJSU) Blaire Fleming (born Brayden Fleming) is the 6’1 biological male competing on the SJSU female volleyball team – the individual various outlets have attributed to the school’s undefeated winning streak. However, after reassessing their initial decision, the University of Wyoming (UW) has added itself to the list of schools demanding fairness and safety in women’s sports.
When UW first learned of the transgender-identifying opponent, they first decided to move forward with their October 5 game. But not long after BSU chose to forfeit, “It appears [UW] … had a change-of-heart,” wrote OutKick’s Dan Zaksheske in response to the team announcing they would, in fact, not compete.
SUU was the first school to opt out of play against SJSU in a preseason matchup and BSU was the first to cancel conference play. Both teams did not explicitly state their reason for forfeiting, and UW also kept their public statement vague. They shared in a statement from Tuesday:
After a lengthy discussion, the University of Wyoming will not play its scheduled conference match against San Jose State University. Per Mountain West Conference policy, the conference will record the match as a forfeit and a loss for Wyoming.
But as Zaksheske added, “While Wyoming is the latest school to cancel a match against San Jose State, don’t be surprised if more schools follow suit.”
It turns out SJSU chose to initially hide the fact that Fleming is a biological male – from both his own teammates and other competitors. This reality, alongside an increasing number of colleges refusing to compete, has not merely sparked controversy, but action as well.
The conservative Christian non-profit Concerned Women for America (CWA) has filed a complaint against SJSU. “We want to protect the integrity of women’s sports but also the safety of these female athletes,” said Macy Petty, a CWA legislative assistant and a NCAA volleyball athlete.
According to Petty, the issue is rooted in the fact that “many of these schools were unaware that there was a male athlete on” the female team. “We just want to make sure that these schools know exactly what is going on in this athletic program because the NCAA and SJSU had not previously given them the decency to even let them know what was happening.”
Ultimately, Petty pointed out, “There’s no informed consent for the schools or for the female athletes here. They’re totally blindsided when they walk up to the court and they see that there’s a male athlete on the other side.” As Fox News reported, CWA’s “federal civil rights complaint [alleged] female discrimination and [argued] that the California university allowed a male athlete to hold a female roster spot as well as a female athletic scholarship.”
In a comment to The Washington Stand, Doreen Denny, CWA senior advisor, stated, “What is happening in NCAA women’s volleyball is a game changer.” As she went on to say, this is the first time we’re seeing “NCAA member institutions … taking a stand against the NCAA’s trans athlete policy that directly discriminates against female athletes and are upholding the integrity of women’s sports.”
CWA CEO Penny Nance also praised UW’s decision in a statement, emphasizing her gratitude that the university “has taken seriously the issues of unfairness and discrimination against female athletes when males compete in women’s sports.” She added, “No NCAA member institution should have to be making this choice.”
In addition to CWA’s complaint, former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines has filed a lawsuit against SJSU. Included as a plaintiff in this lawsuit is Brooke Slusser, a player on the SJSU volleyball team. The document reads:
Due to the NCAA’s Transgender Eligibility Policies which permit Fleming to play on the SJSU women’s volleyball team and which led to SJSU recruiting Fleming, giving Fleming a scholarship, and allowing Fleming to be in positions to violate Brooke’s right to bodily privacy, Brooke has suffered physical and emotional injuries, embarrassment, humiliation, emotional distress, mental anguish and suffering.
In comments shared with OutKick, Slusser said, “It’s crazy to say, but it was an easy decision for me to join because it’s something I truly believe in.… This is something that so many people do care about. It’s just that so many people are scared to talk about it.”
“While these schools have not given a full explanation for their decisions to forfeit matches against San Jose State University,” concluded Denny, “their actions are speaking louder than words.”
This article is reprinted with permission from the Family Research Council, publishers of The Washington Stand at washingtonstand.com.
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
All eyes will be on the Supreme Court later this week when the justices conference on Friday to decide whether to grant a petition for writ of certiorari on a high-stakes climate lawsuit out of Colorado. The case is a part of the long-running lawfare campaign seeking to extract billions of dollars in jury awards from oil companies on claims of nebulous damages caused by carbon emissions.
In Suncor Energy (U.S.A.) Inc., et al. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, major American energy companies are asking the Supreme Court to decide whether federal law precludes state law nuisance claims targeting interstate and global emissions. This comes as the City and County of Boulder, Colo. sued a long list of energy companies under Colorado state nuisance law for alleged impacts from global climate change.
The Colorado Supreme Court allowed a lower state trial court decision to go through, improbably finding that federal law did not preempt state law claims. The central question hangs on whether the federal Clean Air Act (CAA) preempts state common law public nuisance claims related to the regulation of carbon emissions. In this case, as in at least 10 other cases that have been decided in favor of the defendant companies, the CAA clearly does preempt Colorado law. It seems inevitable that the Supreme Court, if it grants the cert petition, would make the same ruling.
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Such a finding by the Supreme Court would reinforce a 2021 ruling by the Second Circuit Appeals Court that also upheld this longstanding principle of federal law. In City of New York v. Chevron Corp. (2021), the Second Circuit ruled that municipalities may not use state tort law to hold multinational companies liable for climate damages, since global warming is a uniquely international concern that touches upon issues of federalism and foreign policy. Consequently, the court called for the explicit application of federal common law, with the CAA granting the Environmental Protection Agency – not federal courts – the authority to regulate domestic greenhouse gas emissions. This Supreme Court, with its 6-3 conservative majority, should weigh in here and find in the same way.
Boulder-associated attorneys have become increasingly open to acknowledging the judicial lawfare inherent in their case, as they try to supplant federal regulatory jurisdiction with litigation meant to force higher energy prices rise for consumers. David Bookbinder, an environmental lawyer associated with the Boulder legal team, said the quiet part out loud in a recent Federalist Society webinar titled “Can State Courts Set Global Climate Policy. “Tort liability is an indirect carbon tax,” Bookbinder stated plainly. “You sue an oil company, an oil company is liable. The oil company then passes that liability on to the people who are buying its products … The people who buy those products are now going to be paying for the cost imposed by those products.”
Oh.
While Bookbinder recently distanced himself from the case, no notice of withdrawal had appeared in the court’s records as of this writing. Bookbinder also writes that “Gas prices and climate change policy have become political footballs because neither party in Congress has had the courage to stand up to the oil and gas lobby. Both sides fear the spin machine, so consumers get stuck paying the bill.”
Let’s be honest: The “spin machine” works in all directions. Make no mistake about it, consumers are already getting stuck paying the bill related to this long running lawfare campaign even though the defendants have repeatedly been found not to be liable in case after case. The many millions of dollars in needless legal costs sustained by the dozens of defendants named in these cases ultimately get passed to consumers via higher energy costs. This isn’t some evil conspiracy by the oil companies: It is Business Management 101.
Because the climate alarm lobby hasn’t been able to force its long-sought national carbon tax through the legislative process, sympathetic activists and plaintiff firms now pursue this backdoor effort in the nation’s courts. But their problem is that the law on this is crystal clear, and it is long past time for the Supreme Court to step in and put a stop to this serial abuse of the system.
David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
President Trump revealed Wednesday afternoon that U.S. authorities intercepted a Cuba-bound oil tanker off the Venezuelan coast, a dramatic move aimed at tightening the squeeze on illicit oil networks operating throughout the region. Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump described the vessel as “a very large tanker — the largest one ever seized in action,” hinting that more developments are coming. He declined to get into specifics, saying only that the operation happened “for a very good reason.” When asked about the tanker’s crude, Trump didn’t overcomplicate it. “Well, we keep it, I guess,” he said.
According to a U.S. official familiar with the operation, the seizure was executed by the Coast Guard with support from the U.S. Navy after a federal judge green-lit the warrant roughly two weeks ago. Another official told the New York Times the ship — identified as the Skipper — had been sailing under a falsified flag and has a documented history of trafficking illicit Iranian oil. The vessel, although carrying Venezuelan crude at the time, was seized because of those Iranian smuggling ties, not because of any direct connection to Nicolás Maduro’s regime.
Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, and the United States Coast Guard, with support from the Department of War, executed a seizure warrant for a crude oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran. For multiple… pic.twitter.com/dNr0oAGl5x
— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) December 10, 2025
Vanguard, a UK-based maritime risk firm, confirmed Wednesday that the Skipper fits the profile of a tanker previously sanctioned by the United States for operating under the alias Adisa while moving banned Iranian oil. A source speaking to Politico said the ship was on its way to Cuba, where state-run Cubametales intended to flip the cargo to Asian brokers — an increasingly common workaround as U.S. sanctions isolate both Havana and Caracas from traditional buyers. With most Venezuelan product now flowing to China under the sanctions regime, oil traders began recalibrating almost immediately after the news broke. Prices ticked upward modestly as markets waited to learn whether any Venezuelan crude was on board and how much would be effectively taken off the table.
Maduro, for his part, avoided directly mentioning the seizure during a speech later Wednesday, instead railing against the United States and claiming Venezuela’s military stands ready “to break the teeth of the North American empire, if necessary.” His bluster did little to obscure the reality: the Trump administration just disrupted yet another shadowy oil operation linking Caracas, Havana, and Tehran — and sent a clear signal that these networks will be confronted, tanker by tanker.
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