Trans Track Athlete Sues Princeton After Losing Spot in Invitational

This story was updated Aug. 29 after the defendants responded to Sadie Schreiner’s complaint in court documents. 

Sadie Schreiner, a transgender woman and track and field athlete, is suing Princeton University, alleging discrimination after she was removed from the start list of the women’s 200-meter run at the Larry Ellis Invitational in May.

According to a complaint filed July 15 in Mercer County civil court, Schreiner was qualified to compete as an unattached athlete (not representing any school or club) based on her previous official times. But 15 minutes before the race, she was removed from the list of participants and, according to the complaint, told by officials that she could not run because she was transgender.

The lawsuit, first reported by Outsports, also named two Princeton employees as defendants (John Mack ’00, the director of athletics, and Kimberly Keenan-Kirkpatrick, the director of track operations) as well as Leone Timing and Results Services, which the complaint said was responsible for verifying athlete eligibility at the meet. University spokesman Michael Hotchkiss declined to comment on the suit.

In court documents filed Aug. 22 and Aug. 25, Princeton University and the other defendants denied most of the allegations in Schreiner’s complaint, including the contention that she was not allowed to run because she was a transgender woman.

Schreiner’s complaint argues that the University violated the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (NJLAD), which prohibits discrimination on the basis of several protected characteristics.

“We stand by the allegations in the pleading,” Susan Cirilli, Schreiner’s attorney, told PAW. “As stated in the complaint, gender identity and expression is a protected status under NJLAD.” 

Schreiner, who attended high school in nearby Hillsborough, New Jersey, earned Division III All-America honors as a sprinter at Rochester Institute of Technology in 2024 but was barred from team events in 2025 when the NCAA adopted new guidelines that prohibit athletes “assigned male at birth” from competing for women’s teams. The NCAA’s changes were announced Feb. 6, a day after President Donald Trump issued an executive order that aimed to ban transgender women from women’s sports at all levels. The NCAA policy noted that member institutions “are subject to local, state, and federal legislation and such policy supersedes the rules of the NCAA.”

According to Outsports, Schreiner applied to compete in two collegiate meets before the Larry Ellis Invitational, during the indoor track season, and was denied entry.