BUZZ
Key Takeaways
- A federal judge ruled that the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority can admit members based on its own definitions, including those identifying as women.
- The case challenges the admission of Artemis Langford, a male who identifies as female.
- Concerns raised in the lawsuit included the impact of Langford's membership on the privacy and safety of female members, including the absence of locks in bathrooms and shared living spaces.
For the second time, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by members of the University of Wyoming Kappa Kappa Gamma chapter challenging the admission of a male student into their sorority.
The lawsuit, filed in 2023 and later amended, involves the acceptance of Artemis Langford, a man who identifies as a woman, as a member of the all-female sorority in 2022. It alleges Kappa Kappa Gamma violated its own bylaws, which say members must be women.
On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Alan Johnson ruled that the sorority is a private organization that can admit whomever it chooses, WyoFile reports.
“In short, we are required to leave Kappa alone,” Johnson wrote.
The sorority and its leaders have “published and distributed multiple texts clarifying” its definition of the word woman “to include individuals who identify as women,” according to Johnson’s ruling.
Instead of pursuing their lawsuit further, the judge suggested the sorority members could “advocate for a new amendment to the Bylaws, defining the word ‘woman’ as they wish, which would restrain Kappa from choosing between various reasonable definitions of the term.”
“If as many Kappa members are upset about the admission of transgender women members as Plaintiffs claim, this internal remedy should be more than sufficient to achieve their aims,” he wrote.
Johnson’s ruling came in response to an amended complaint, according to WyoFile:
Arguing that the government cannot interfere with how a private, voluntary organization determines its members, Johnson dismissed the case in August 2023. Plaintiffs then attempted to appeal the decision, but the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver rejected the case in June 2024, kicking it back down to the lower court on the grounds Johnson’s ruling did not amount to a final order. As a result, the appeals panel did not have jurisdiction over the matter.
The dispute then went unresolved as the plaintiffs failed to take any action. In May, Johnson gave them a deadline: file an amended complaint or ask for a final ruling.
In June, a new set of plaintiffs — former UW students Hannah Holtmeier, Allison Coghan and Haley Rutsch — filed an amended complaint. They also dropped Langford as a defendant.
It is not known if the sorority members plan to appeal.
Notably, the Trump administration launched an investigation into the university and alleged Title IX violations related to the lawsuit in June, according to the report.
According to the initial lawsuit, Langford’s admission caused harm to female members, in part, because many areas of the sorority house, which are supposed to be a single-sex haven, were accessed by a man, The College Fix reported previously.
One of the sorority sisters in the house at the time included a sexual assault survivor, the initial complaint stated. Additionally, the bathrooms did not have locks and there was no private area to get out of one’s clothes before showering, according to the lawsuit.
May Mailman, a lawyer representing the sorority sisters in the initial case through the Independent Women’s Law Center, told The Fix last year, “In order for our society and the law to function, words have meaning.”
“Kappa could have changed from a sorority to a co-ed living space, but it didn’t. It said members shall be ‘women.’ We must accept that words have meaning, because it’s true,” Mailman said at the time.
