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From Fox News: Back in November, attorney Tim Heaphy of the law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher led a third-party investigation into allegations against San Jose State’s transgender volleyball player Blaire Fleming of conspiring with an opponent to harm a teammate. Heaphy carried this out in the same month that other partners in his firm worked to protect Fleming’s eligibility to compete in women’s college volleyball. Heaphy later offered the school legal counsel to help it navigate a federal Title IX investigation over the same situation. The offer was declined.
Fleming, the trans athlete at the center of a national controversy last fall, was accused in a Title IX complaint and a separate lawsuit of discussing plans to have teammate Brooke Slusser spiked in the face during a game against Colorado State on Oct. 3.
Slusser told Fox News Digital she previously had a concussion her junior year in 2023. She claims she has since made conscious efforts to avoid blows to the head out of fear of potential long-term brain damage from a second concussion.
“It could have possibly ended my career or really affected me long term,” Slusser said. “Because my first concussion was so bad, sometimes just getting bonked in the head by a serve, which is not even that bad, would make me a little dizzy sometimes. So it did scare me, if I did even get another little minor concussion, how it would affect me.”
Although Slusser was not spiked in the face during the Oct. 3 game, the Mountain West Conference launched an official investigation based on allegations brought by an SJSU teammate.
That teammate reportedly witnessed Fleming making the plan with an opposing player.
Willkie Farr & Gallagher was hired by the conference to investigation, led by Heaphy, who was previously the chief investigative counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives select committee on the January 6 capitol protests.
As Heaphy’s investigation started, partners at the same firm, Willkie Farr & Gallagher, began representing the same entity, the Mountain West Conference, to work against Slusser, former assistant coach Melissa Batie-Smoose, and 10 other Mountain West women’s volleyball players. They’d filed an injunction to keepFlming out of the conference tournament.
The firm was successful in keeping the trans athlete in the tournament. Federal judge Kato Crews, appointed by former President Joe Biden in 2024, ruled in favor of Fleming’s eligibility.
Meanwhile Heaphy’s investigation into Fleming’s misconduct allegations closed soon after it started, yielding nothing against Fleming.
An investigation into an alleged plan by ex-SJSU trans athlete Blaire Fleming to have a teammate spiked in the face was led, and cleared, by the same firm that fought to keep Fleming eligible. The firm then deleted a page linking it to defending Fleming.https://t.co/lfcvrsSOXu
— Jackson Thompson (@JackThompsonFOX) June 24, 2025
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