A New York judge ruled against a university that blocked a transgender athlete from competing in a women’s track meet, saying that state law banning discrimination based on gender identity supersedes President Trump’s executive order on female sports.
State Judge Richard McNally rejected a motion from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to dismiss the lawsuit brought by Sadie Schreiner, a transgender runner who was barred from a 2025 women’s track meet hosted by the university.
The institute cited Mr. Trump’s Executive Order 14201, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” but Judge McNally called the order an “interpretive statement that details the executive branch’s opinion on how Title IX should be interpreted.”
“Executive Order 14201 is not a statute, it is not a regulation, and it does not concern foreign policy,” he said in his Thursday opinion. “As such, Executive Order 14201 does not preempt state law.”
He also dismissed the university’s Title IX defense, saying the university “merely gives lip service to its argument that Title IX categorically bans all transgender women from competing in women’s sports” without citing specific Department of Education regulations.
The judge rejected the athlete’s claims of “intentional infliction of emotional distress” and violation of the state’s public-accommodation law, but allowed the case to proceed on the claim that the university violated the New York State Human Rights Law.
Rensselaer said in a Saturday statement that “RPI respects the court’s decision. We are unable to comment further on ongoing litigation.”
Schreiner sued in November after the institute rebuffed the athlete’s bid to enter the women’s 200-meter and 400-meter races at the Under the Lights Meet in April 2025, a competition for student-athletes from various colleges as well as unaffiliated athletes.
The university cited Mr. Trump’s executive order issued Feb. 5, 2025, as well as the Department of Education’s stated intention to enforce the order under Title IX.
Schreiner, 22, is well known on the transgender-athlete front, a men’s varsity sprinter in high school who broke women’s records at the Rochester Institute of Technology and won All-American honors after undergoing a gender transition as a college freshman, as reported by OutSports.
Schreiner took third place in the 200-meter at the NCAA Division III national championships in 2024, but the athlete’s collegiate career was cut short when the NCAA changed its rules on transgender eligibility by banning athletes “assigned male at birth” from competing in women’s sports.
Since then, Schreiner competed in events outside the NCAA’s purview, winning the 400-meter race at the 2025 USA Track and Field Open Masters Championships in New York, and also sought to compete as an unattached athlete without a university affiliation.
Schreiner is no stranger to the courts, suing the NCAA and the State University of New York at Geneseo after being rejected from competing as an unattached athlete at a March 2025 women’s track meet.
In July 2025, the athlete sued Princeton University after being dropped from a school-sponsored meet.
