Trump Nominates Attorney Justin Olson for Federal Judgeship

President Donald Trump has nominated attorney Justin Olson to serve on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana. Announcing the nomination on Truth Social, Trump praised Olson, who graduated magna cum laude from Indiana University Maurer School of Law, for his previous work at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Indianapolis and his current legal efforts. “Hoosiers can trust Justin to always uphold the Rule of Law, and strongly protect their Constitutional Rights,” Trump stated in his announcement. Olson’s nomination brings attention to his role in high-profile cases concerning transgender athletes in women’s sports, which Trump specifically highlighted as Olson “fighting tirelessly to keep men out of women’s sports.”

Olson currently works at the law firm Kroger Gardis & Regas, LLP, where he has gained recognition for his involvement in lawsuits related to transgender athletes in women’s collegiate sports. He is helping lead a lawsuit funded by the Independent Council on Women’s Sports (ICONS) against the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, the Ivy League, and NCAA regarding transgender swimmer Lia Thomas. Additionally, Olson is listed as an attorney in ICONS’s separate lawsuit against the Mountain West Conference and representatives of San Jose State University concerning transgender volleyball player Blaire Fleming. These cases have put Olson at the center of the contentious national debate about transgender participation in women’s sports.

The UPenn case, filed in February, involves former swimmers Grace Estabrook, Margot Kaczorowski, and Ellen Holmquist who alleged that university officials made them feel their concerns about being teammates with Thomas were rooted in a “psychological problem.” The lawsuit claims that by allowing Thomas to compete, the institutions “injured them and violated federal law.” According to court documents, Thomas, who previously competed on the men’s team as Will Thomas, was introduced to the women’s team in Fall 2019. The plaintiffs allege they were “repeatedly emotionally traumatized” by the experience and claim university administrators pushed pro-transgender ideology while warning them against speaking publicly about their concerns, suggesting their reputations would be permanently tainted with accusations of transphobia.

Thomas went on to achieve significant success in women’s swimming, winning an NCAA Division I national championship in the 500-yard freestyle, earning three All-America honors, and being named High Point Swimmer at the Ivy League Championships. However, in June, UPenn agreed with the Trump administration to remove Thomas’s records from the women’s program archives and adopt a policy prohibiting biological males from participating in women’s sports. This resolution came after significant controversy surrounding Thomas’s participation and success in women’s collegiate swimming competitions, which sparked national debate about fairness and inclusion in women’s athletics.

The San Jose State University case, filed in November 2023, features similar allegations but in the context of women’s volleyball. Former co-captain Brooke Slusser, along with ten other former and current Mountain West players, claimed that the conference and university withheld information about Fleming’s biological sex while requiring Slusser to share changing spaces and hotel rooms with Fleming. This case has prompted an investigation by the U.S. Department of Education, adding to the growing national conversation about transgender athlete policies in collegiate sports and the balance between inclusion and competitive fairness.

Before joining Kroger Gardis, Olson served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Indiana’s Civil Division, where he was the civil health care fraud coordinator and civil opioid coordinator. His current legal practice focuses on health care fraud and abuse, False Claims Act enforcement, Controlled Substances Act regulatory compliance, and helping clients navigate government investigations. This experience in federal law enforcement and complex litigation, combined with his current work on high-profile cases regarding transgender athletes, forms the background of Trump’s judicial nominee who, if confirmed, would serve on the federal bench in Indiana’s Southern District.