A 15-year-old Washington state girl named Kallie Keeler was forced to wrestle a male opponent in a girls’ high school match, and that opponent allegedly sexually assaulted her during the match. Now her family is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to step in, after lower courts refused to help.
Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court on Friday on behalf of Keeler and her mother, Stephanie Brown. The filing asks the court to require Washington state officials to protect girls’ sports and honor Title IX, the federal civil-rights law designed to give female athletes equal opportunities. It also asks the court to protect parents’ constitutional right to be notified before schools put their kids in dangerous situations, like matching a girl against a male wrestler.
Washington state’s policies allow males to compete on girls’ teams, which is how Keeler ended up on the mat against an opponent she could immediately tell was stronger and more powerful than anyone she’d faced before. She only found out her opponent was male after the match was over. Her mother reported the assault right away, with video showing Keeler’s distressed reaction in the moment, and school officials responded by essentially doing as little as possible. Because nothing says “we take this seriously” like a shrug.
Both a federal district court and the Ninth Circuit, which has never met a left-wing state policy it didn’t love, declined to make officials follow Title IX or respect parental rights. That left ADF with no choice but to go straight to the nation’s highest court. You can follow the details of the emergency filing in the Title IX wrestling case to see exactly what Keeler and her family are up against.
ADF Senior Counsel John Bursch put it plainly: “No girl should have to choose between playing the sport she loves and her safety. But the state of Washington forces female athletes like our client Kallie to compete on uneven playing fields against males, violating Title IX’s promise of equal opportunities for girls.” He added, “Kallie was just 15 years old when a male wrestler sexually assaulted her. Yet state officials continue to diminish the harm to her, pushing their harmful political agenda ahead of fairness and safety for girls.”
The filing makes clear what Washington officials are actually demanding of Keeler right now: compete against males or sit out sports entirely. They’ve also refused to let Brown, her mother, opt her out of matches against male opponents, or even notify Brown in advance so she can pull her daughter herself. Apparently parental rights are also on the chopping block when they get in the way of the agenda.
The application warns that without a court injunction, Keeler will miss the girls’ wrestling season starting in November, losing the very opportunities Title IX was written to guarantee. The Supreme Court now gets to decide whether a teenage girl’s safety and a mother’s right to protect her daughter matter more than Washington’s gender policies.
This is simple biology, folks. Remember, what someone identifies as doesn’t count for anything.
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*Photo for illustration purposes only.
