Trump nominates attorney fighting transgender sports cases to federal court
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President Donald Trump has nominated attorney Justin Olson of Kroger Gardis & Regas, LLP to serve on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana.
Olson is one of the attorneys helping lead a lawsuit funded by the Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS) against the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, the Ivy League and the NCAA for its handling of a situation involving transgender swimmer Lia Thomas. Olson is also an attorney in ICONS’ lawsuit against the Mountain West Conference and representatives of San Jose State University over their handling of a situation involving transgender volleyball player Blaire Fleming.
Trump noted Olson’s work on these cases in his candidacy announcement at Truth Social on Friday.
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Trump wrote: “It is my honor to nominate Justin Olson to serve as Judge on the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana! A graduate magna cum laude from Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Justin previously distinguished himself at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Indianapolis, fighting tirelessly as a litigator to keep men out of women’s sports.”
“Hoosiers can count on Justin to always uphold the Rule of Law and vigorously protect their Constitutional Rights. Congratulations Justin!”
Former UPenn swimmers Grace Estabrook, Margot Kaczorowski and Ellen Holmquist filed the lawsuit Feb. 5, alleging that UPenn officials’ concerns about being teammates with Thomas stemmed from a “psychological issue” and that the institutions “injured them and violated federal law” by allowing Thomas to compete.
Thomas, a biological male, previously competed on the UPenn men’s swim team under the name Will Thomas from 2017-20. According to the lawsuit, Thomas was introduced to the female swimmers as their new teammate by women’s swimming head coach Mike Schnur at a team meeting in Fall 2019.
Each of the three plaintiffs claims the experience left them “repeatedly emotionally traumatized.”
The plaintiffs allege that university administrators imposed pro-trans ideology on them during the process of accepting Thomas to the team and in the locker room. The plaintiffs also claim that managers warned them not to publicly comment on the situation.
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“UPenn administrators continued to tell the women that if women publicly spoke out about their concerns about Thomas’s participation on the Women’s Team, those who complained about Thomas being on the team would have their reputations tainted by transphobia for the rest of their lives and would likely never find employment,” the lawsuit said.
Thomas won the NCAA Division I national championship in the 500-yard freestyle, earned three All-America honors at the NCAA Championships, and was named the High Point Swimmer of the Meet at the Ivy League Championships.
UPenn agreed In June, an agreement was reached with the Trump administration to remove athletes’ swimming records from the women’s program archives and adopt a policy that would exclude biological males from women’s sports.
Meanwhile, in the SJSU case, former women’s volleyball captain Brooke Slusser filed the lawsuit in November 2024 along with 10 other former and current Mountain West players. Slusser claimed that the Mountain West and SJSU withheld information about Fleming’s biological sex from him and other players, but shared locker areas and hotel rooms with Fleming.
SJSU is currently under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education regarding the situation.
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In addition to his work on these cases, Olson served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, Civil Division, and served as civil health care fraud coordinator and civil opioid coordinator.
At Kroger Gardis, Olson represents and advises clients on healthcare fraud and abuse, enforcement of the False Claims Act and compliance and enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act, responding to government subpoenas, civil investigative requests, and requests for information, as well as directing and resolving government investigations.
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