Nevada volleyball players were pressured with 'legal issues' to play SJSU trans player during feud with school

Nevada Women’s Volleyball captain Sia Liilii shares her team’s decision to forfeit their match against a transgender athlete, during an appearance on ‘Fox & Friends Weekend.’

EXCLUSIVE: In October, players on the University of Nevada Reno women's volleyball team were engaged in a highly publicized dispute with its university and athletic department over whether to play a match against San Jose State University. 

San Jose State, at the time, rostered a trans athlete.

The Nevada players approached university administrators privately to express their desire to forfeit the match and join four other programs that refused to play SJSU. But Nevada did not honor that request and instead released a statement insisting it would play the match. Nevada also insisted its players would be allowed to skip the contest without facing discipline. 

The team ultimately forfeited the day before the match was scheduled to be played, due to not having enough players. However, the university has said it had discussions with the players about potential "legal issues" that would emerge if the match were not played. 

"University administrators met with the Nevada volleyball team and discussed scenarios of what could happen if they chose not to play. One of the scenarios that was discussed revolved around possible legal issues for violating the Nevada Constitution," read a statement that was provided exclusively to Fox News Digital by the University of Nevada, Reno. 

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The state's constitution was revised in 2022, when Democrat lawmakers voted to adopt the Equal Rights Amendment, which added gender identity to its list of diversity classifications that are protected under state law. 

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