Attorneys for Kappa Kappa Gamma are asking a federal court to end the long-running legal battle over the University of Wyoming sorority’s inclusion of a transgender member.
“Much has changed in the more than two years since this case was initially filed,” the defendants wrote in a motion to dismiss filed Friday.
Six members sued the sorority in early 2023 for allegedly breaking its bylaws, breaching housing contracts and misleading sisters when it admitted Artemis Langford, a transgender woman, by a vote of its members.
U.S. District Court Judge Alan B. Johnson dismissed the case in August 2023, ruling that the government cannot interfere with how a private, voluntary organization determines its members. Months later, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver also dismissed the case.
That left the sorority sisters — Jaylyn Westenbroek, Hannah Holtmeier, Allison Coghan, Grace Choate, Madeline Ramar and Megan Kosar — two choices. They could amend the complaint or ask the lower court for a final judgement.
Almost a year later, facing a filing deadline, they filed an amended complaint earlier this month that no longer named Langford as a defendant and included a new set of plaintiffs.
“The matter has bounced between this court and the Tenth Circuit,” Friday’s filing states. “Four of the six named plaintiffs have left the case and a new one has joined. Each of the current and former plaintiffs and the former student defendant who attended the University of Wyoming have graduated.”
And yet, attorneys for the sorority argue, “this remains a case where plaintiffs seek to have a federal court dictate to a private organization how inclusive it can be in defining its own membership.” (Emphasis from the filing.)
In Johnson’s 2023 dismissal of the case, he applied the landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale.
In 2000, the high court ruled that the scouting organization was exempt from New Jersey state law that bars anti-gay discrimination. The private organization had fired James Dale, an assistant scout master, when it found out he was gay. Overturning a lower court’s decision, the Supreme Court ruled that requiring the Boy Scouts to readmit Dale would violate the private organization’s First Amendment right of expressive association.
“Dale controls today, interestingly with the shoe on the other foot,” Johnson wrote. “Whether excluding gay scoutmasters in Dale or including transgender women in Kappa, this Judge may not invade Kappa’s sacrosanct, associational right to engage in protected speech.”
Attorneys for the sorority pointed back to this in their Friday filings.
“As was the case when defendants moved to dismiss this case two years ago, plaintiffs have no legal right to have their sorority’s leadership adopt their personal definition of who is and is not a ‘woman,’” the filing states. “And it is not the role of the courts to police the membership decisions of private organizations.”
The legal defects of the amended complaint extend beyond that, the defendants also argue, pointing to a failure of the plaintiffs to properly identify wrongdoing. Kappa’s attorneys also allege that the sorority sisters failed to serve or attempt to serve all defendants.
Johnson’s 2023 dismissal was “without prejudice,” meaning it was not a final decision, and effectively left the sorority sisters the option to amend their complaint.
Kappa’s attorneys are asking the court for a final ruling.
“Defendants respectfully submit that the time has come for the court to put an end to plaintiffs’ attempts to use this court to advance their preferred social agenda within a private organization of more than 210,000 members,” the filing states.
The plaintiffs will now have an opportunity to respond before the court makes a decision.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration announced earlier this month it’s investigating the University of Wyoming for alleged Title IX violations stemming from the sorority’s inclusion of a transgender member.
Hopefully these 6 malcontents didn’t get the positive publicity and monies they were seeking by attacking a sister and Kappa. I hope KKG removed them from membership.