Three Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority members filed a notice Wednesday announcing that they’re appealing their recent court loss regarding the 2022 induction of a transgender member into the sorority’s University of Wyoming chapter.
Hannah Holtmeier, Alison Coghan, and Haley Rusch filed a notice in the U.S. District Court for Wyoming that they’re appealing Judge Alan B. Johnson’s Aug. 22 dismissal of their case.
The women in their lawsuit accused the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority of treating its members unfairly by allegedly tweaking the induction rules to admit a transgender member, though founding documents cast the group as a women’s organization.
Johnson dismissed the case on the grounds that U.S. case law gives private groups considerable latitude to dictate their own membership terms.
A pivotal case to that end is the 2000 U.S. Supreme Court case of Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, in which the Boy Scouts sought to exclude a gay scoutmaster from the group.
The high court upheld the group’s action, saying private voluntary groups have a First Amendment right to determine their terms of association.
Second Rodeo
Wyoming is well acquainted with the Kappa saga.
Artemis Langford, a transgender University of Wyoming student, was inducted into the local Kappa Kappa Gamma chapter in the autumn of 2022, amid some controversy.
Seven (later six) sorority members sued the sorority the following spring, saying the sorority moved the goalposts for admission to accommodate Langford for social appearance reasons, and to the detriment of the other members and the future of the organization.
Johnson dismissed the case that August, citing private groups’ associational rights.
The women appealed to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, which voiced doubts about whether Johnson’s dismissal was final and said it could not handle the appeal unless it were challenging a final action.
Two of the original plaintiffs (and one new plaintiff) re-filed the complaint in June.
Johnson in August again dismissed the lawsuit.
Along with announcing their appeal, the three plaintiffs introduced a new attorney who will be handling it: Rick Koehmstedt of Casper-based Koehmstedt Law Firm.
Koehmstedt did not immediately respond to a voicemail request for comment.
'– Again –'
Johnson in August said that what the plaintiffs think or what President Trump thinks about the definition of the word “woman” doesn’t factor into the contract law governing private groups, necessarily.
“Having considered the issues presented – again – we find that the majority of the claims must be dismissed on the grounds that this court still may not interfere with Kappa’s contractually valid interpretation of its own bylaws,” wrote the judge.
The women failed to show how inducting a transgender member broke the organization’s bylaws, Johnson wrote. He added that though the group’s early and founding documents reference women, nothing in the bylaws requires Kappa to define the word women as including “only those individuals born with a certain set of reproductive organs.”
The women cited President Donald Trump’s executive order issued this year, saying adult human females are people “belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell.”
Johnson voiced confusion at this.
“We are not entirely sure what this definition means, not having a degree in biology,” wrote the judge.
Even so, Johnson ruled that’s just the executive branch’s interpretation of the law, “not relevant in the world of private contracts, which is where we currently find ourselves.”
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
