Nevada
Nevada cancels volleyball match with San Jose State after clashing with own players over transgender controversy
The University of Nevada, Reno officially announced on Friday that its women’s volleyball team will forfeit its game against San Jose State on Saturday.
Nevada is the fifth team to forfeit its match against San Jose State amid an ongoing national controversy over a transgender player, Blaire Fleming, on the team and another player engaged in a lawsuit over never being told that player was a biological male, according to the lawsuit.
Nevada cited not having enough players to compete in the match for forfeiting after its players expressed a desire and intention not to compete against San Jose State.
“Due to not having enough players to compete, the University of Nevada women’s volleyball team will not play its scheduled Mountain West Conference match at San José State on Saturday, Oct. 26. Per Mountain West Conference policy, the match will be recorded as a conference loss for Nevada,” Nevada announced in a statement early on Friday morning.
San Jose State responded to the forfeit in a statement to Fox News Digital.
“Our athletes all comply with NCAA and Mountain West Conference policies and they are eligible to play under the rules of those organizations. We will continue to take measures to prioritize the health and safety of our students while they pursue their earned opportunities to compete,” the statement read.
Nevada players, including team captain Sia Liillii, spoke out against the notion of competing against a transgender player in the weeks leading up to the cancelation after voting to forfeit it on Oct. 14. The players even went so far as to schedule a press conference alongside OutKick contributor and women’s athlete activist Riley Gaines to go on at the same time as the game on Saturday.
“We were pretty upset after that statement came out from our university,” Liilii told Yahoo Sports. “It just hit us that we needed to talk about what we wanted to do as a group, make a decision and stand by it.”
However, Nevada would not officially forfeit the game until Friday morning, citing state law.
“The vast majority of our team decided this is something we wanted to take a stand on,” Liilii told the website. “We didn’t want to play against a male player.
“In all of our team meetings it just kept coming back to the fact that men do not belong in women’s sports. If you’re born a biological male, you don’t belong in women’s sports. It’s not even about this individual athlete. It’s about fair competition and safety for everyone.”
The Nevada state constitution was revised in 2022 when Nevada voted to adopt the Equal Rights Amendment, which added gender identity to the list of protections. Nevada state Sen. Pat Spearman, a Democrat from North Las Vegas who co-sponsored the bill to get it on the ballot, said the law has helped transgender people maintain their identity.
“The university made the decision not to declare a forfeiture and move forward with hosting the match as scheduled based on several factors. As a public university, the university is legally prohibited by Section 24 of the Nevada Constitution and other laws and regulations to declare a forfeit for reasons related to gender identity or expression,” a Nevada spokesperson previously told Fox News Digital.
On Tuesday, both Nevada and San Jose State announced that the match would be moved from Nevada’s campus in Reno to San Jose State’s campus in the Bay Area in California, claiming the location change was “in the best interest of both programs and the well-being of the student-athletes, coaches, athletic staff and spectators.”
San Jose State would have needed to be at the site of the match, however, in order to receive a forfeit victory if no Nevada players end up playing. By moving the site of the match to the San Jose State campus, then the Spartan players would not have to make the trip to Nevada in order to secure the forfeit victory. So, by making this change, San Jose State will get to claim a forfeited victory if no Nevada players choose to play, without leaving their home state.
Now that the match has been officially forfeited, no one will have to do any traveling.
Nevada joins Southern Utah, Boise State, Wyoming and Utah State, which all have officially forfeited their scheduled games against San Jose State.
San Jose State player Brooke Slusser joined a lawsuit headed by OutKick host and former collegiate swimmer Riley Gaines against the NCAA due to its policies on gender identity. Slusser joined this lawsuit because she claims that she has had to share a court, a locker room and even a room on overnight trips with her teammate Fleming without having ever been told that Fleming was a biological male.
Security concerns and threats against San Jose State players have made traveling for matches a high-risk endeavor for the lady Spartans. San Jose State previously confirmed to Fox News Digital that police protection had been assigned to the team, shortly after getting the first news of an opponent forfeiting, when Southern Utah announced that it would not play its match against the Spartans in September.
“One of my teammates got a DM, basically saying that she, and then my team, needed to keep my distance from me on gameday against Colorado State, because it wasn’t going to be a good situation for me to be in and that my team needed to keep their distance,” Slusser told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview. “They needed to keep their distance from me during the game, because something was going to happen to me.
“This was the first physical threat when we could easily see that they wanted to physically harm one of us.”
In June, a survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago asked respondents to weigh in on whether transgender athletes of both sexes should be permitted to participate in sports leagues that correspond to their preferred gender identity instead of their biological sex.
Sixty-five percent answered that it should either be never or rarely allowed. When those polled were asked specifically about adult transgender female athletes competing on women’s sports teams, 69% opposed it.
The United Nations released study findings that say nearly 900 biological females have fallen short of the podium because they were beaten out by transgender athletes.
The study, titled “Violence against women and girls in sports,” said that more than 600 athletes did not medal in more than 400 competitions in 29 different sports, totaling over 890 medals, according to information obtained up to March 30.
“The replacement of the female sports category with a mixed-sex category has resulted in an increasing number of female athletes losing opportunities, including medals, when competing against males,” the report said.
Former President Donald Trump has gone so far as to advocate for a ban, in a recent town hall event on Fox News.
“We’re not going to let it happen,” Trump said of the issue. “We stop it, we stop it, we absolutely stop it. We can’t have it.
“You just ban it. The president bans it. You don’t let it happen. It’s not a big deal.”
LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — Nevada Youth Sports is working to keep thousands of young athletes on the field after a fire believed to have been sparked by illegal fireworks caused nearly a quarter of a million dollars in damage to its facility.
The fire broke out late on the night of July 4. Jane Ramos, chief administrative officer for Nevada Youth Sports, said she received a call from the organization’s landlord telling her there had been a fire at the building.
“We got a call from our landlord saying I needed to come out here right away because there had been a fire,” Ramos said. “We didn’t really understand the scope of what had happened until we could hardly open the door because of the fumes, the smoke, and the smell.”
According to Ramos, firefighters responded shortly before midnight after flames were reported on the roof of the building. In the days since, the organization says it has learned the fire is believed to have started when embers from illegal fireworks landed on the roof.
“It’s something that was preventable if it truly was illegal fireworks,” Ramos said.
Early damage assessments estimate nearly $250,000 in structural, electrical and water damage. Ramos said the organization is still working to understand the full financial impact.
“We’re trying to assess where we are financially in all of this,” she said. “It’s really a question mark.”
The damage has forced Nevada Youth Sports to temporarily close its facility, affecting the thousands of athletes and families who rely on the organization for leagues, clinics and training programs.
Nevada Youth Sports serves more than 14,000 athletes and families across the Las Vegas Valley each year. Ramos said the organization’s immediate priority is finding alternate locations so programs can continue with as little disruption as possible.
“We’re definitely allocating our resources toward those efforts,” Ramos said. “Whatever the cost is to continue programming outside of this building, that’s where we’re focusing our efforts right now.”
While investigators continue looking into the cause of the fire, Ramos said the organization hopes whoever is responsible will be held accountable. She said neighboring businesses have provided surveillance video that could help determine exactly what happened.
“I’m hopeful that we can point some accountability somewhere,” Ramos said. “Our commercial neighbors have been very kind to offer their camera footage, so we’re still collecting all of that information before we pursue anything further.”
Despite the damage, Ramos said the organization’s commitment to local families remains unchanged.
“We’ll continue to be steadfast and patient,” she said. “Our mission is being a partner to our athletes and families. We’re here for a bigger purpose than just this building, and we’ll see it through.”
Nevada Youth Sports expects to have a better understanding of the repair timeline by the end of the week. In the meantime, leaders say they’re grateful for the community support they’ve already received as they work to restore operations.
Nevada
U. Nevada Reno department merger will study social life via ‘intersectional, decolonial, humanistic’ lens | The College Fix
A ‘place where rigorous social research and critical, decolonial scholarship’ will occur
At the beginning of this month, the University of Nevada Reno merged its sociology department and Department of Gender, Race, and Identity to form the Department of Sociology and Cultural Analysis — dedicated to studying “social life” via “intersectional, decolonial and humanistic” methods.
According Nevada Today, the consolidation “reflects a long-recognized affinity between the two departments. Sociology and GRI share deep commitments to understanding social inequalities, the forces that produce and reproduce them, and the possibilities for transformation.”
The new department will be led by Professors Lydia Huerta (research interests include “critical communication pedagogy” and “feminist, gender and sexuality studies”) and Jared Bok (“globalization and transnationalism,” “religion, culture, organizations”) whom outgoing Dept. of Sociology Chair Marta Elliot (“prejudice, discrimination, stigma and well-being,” “sociology of mental health and illness”) said will “exceptionally well-position” the merger for the future.
The now-former Departments of Sociology and Gender, Race, and Identity taught students “to ask rigorous questions about race, gender, class, migration, health, labor, culture and power,” and the merger won’t change that, according to the report.
Huerta said the new department “will be a place where rigorous social research and critical, decolonial scholarship inform one another and where students graduate equipped to understand and change the world they inherit.”
The Department of Sociology and Cultural Analysis will offer “robust” selection of majors and minors including gender, race and identity, comparative ethnic studies, Indigenous studies, gender and queer studies, and social justice and conflict studies.
College of Liberal Arts Dean Casilde Isabelli said these programs “preserve [both former departments’] unique intellectual traditions while creating new opportunities for collaboration, innovation and student success.”
According to her faculty page, Huerta has written the journal articles “The Exigency of the Anti-Gender Agenda in Latin America: A Transnational Perspective” and “The Impacts of Anti-Genderism on Education in Brazil: Fear and Danger among Professors of Gender” among other publications.
Bok’s offerings include “Religious Exit Costs” and “The Arts in Sacred Spaces: How Religious Conservatism and Cultural Omnivorousness Influence Attitudes about Congregational Involvement in the Arts.”
MORE: U. Nevada Reno language guide warns against using ‘native Nevadan,’ offensive to indigenous people
Summer weather should be in full force this week here in northern Nevada, with sunny, dry, and hot conditions expected in the coming days. Kicking off your work week, Monday’s expected high is 93 degrees, with clear skies and light winds from the west.
Today’s high falls in line with the average high for July 6 at Reno-Tahoe International Airport.
Monday’s forecast for Reno
There is a slight chance of showers early in the day on Monday, but by late morning, we’ll have wall-to-wall sunshine in Reno.
Euro Model for Monday, July 6 at 11:30 a.m. PST
South Lake Tahoe 10-day forecast
Temperatures will slowly heat up over the course of the week, with the potential for triple-digit highs come Friday in Reno. Hope you enjoyed the Fourth of July weekend!
Be sure to stay with News4 for the latest weather information, both on-air and online. Check out the latest forecast with our Weather Authority team here.
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