Lawsuit Alleges Trans Inclusion Jeopardizes Sorority’s Title IX Exemption
The fight over whether Kappa Kappa Gamma can include trans women is getting uglier.
by Evan Urquhart
Last August, a federal judge ruled that the courts had no place in deciding whether or not a sorority could include trans women as members. In his decision, which declined to force the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority to expel Artemis Langford from their University of Wyoming chapter, Judge Alan B. Johnson chided the plaintiffs for the shoddy contents of their claim, which went heavy on lurid smears against Langford, but light on legal claims. “If Plaintiffs wish to amend their complaint, the Court advises Plaintiffs that they devote more than 6% of their complaint to their legal claims against Defendants,” the judge wrote, dismissing the suit without prejudice. A new lawsuit, filed not by current sorority members but by alumni who were ousted from the sorority after joining the attacks against it, seeks to do what the first suit could not and force Kappa Kappa Gamma to ban trans women from their organization. After the dismissal, a profile of Langford appeared in the Washington Post.
The new lawsuit was filed on January 25th, with a different set of plaintiffs and a very different approach. Brought on behalf of former KKG national foundation president Patsy Levang, among other alumni members, it seeks Levang’s reinstatement after she publicly joined the anti-trans attacks on KKG, resulting in the sorority terminating her membership. In addition to suing for Levang’s reinstatement it also seeks to force KKG to stop admitting trans women, claiming the sorority initially extended membership to trans women improperly, and that the decision to do so endangers the organization’s Title IX exempt status.
Title IX is a portion of US civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in education. Social fraternities and sororities are exempt from Title IX, meaning that they are allowed to confine their membership to men or women only. The theory being advanced is that, if a sorority does not limit its membership strictly by biological sex, it could be forced by Title IX to admit members of all genders.
The suit has been covered favorably in the right-wing press, with stories this morning in the National Review, the Washington Examiner, and the Daily Wire. The stories in the Washington Examiner and the Daily Wire focused on a trans women who was admitted as an alumna and has served in leadership roles for the organization. She is mentioned in the lawsuit only as “the Candidate,” but has been identified by those outlets as Tracy Nadzieja. Nadzieja serves as a judge in Maricopa County Superior Court in Arizona, and was once a member of the Sigma Pi fraternity at ASU, and served in at least one leadership role in that organization. After her transition she joined Kappa Kappa Gamma through alumna initiation in 2020, and was subsequently elected as a district director, which the suit claims was fraudulent because those voting were not necessarily aware of Nadzeija’s transgender identity.
Both the Daily Wire and the Examiner focus their stories on the possibility mentioned in the lawsuit that, if Nadzieja becomes eligible for leadership roles, she could perhaps serve as the president of the sorority someday.
screenshot from the Daily Wire
The new lawsuit is being described as broadening the scope of the initial lawsuit that failed to oust Langford in Wyoming, however the suits are very different. For one thing, the new lawsuit has been filed in the Southern District of Ohio, not Wyoming. It focuses on Ledang’s ouster, not the presence of Langford, although Langford’s inclusion is mentioned in addition to Nadzieja. This new suit is also written to focus more on legal issues than on lurid hearsay. Whether these changes will lead to a more favorable result, and whether the original Wyoming lawsuit seeking to oust Langford will eventually be brought back in some form remain questions for the future.