Jonathan Lange: Lawfare Against Sorority Sisters’ Attorneys Tries To Stifle Debate

December 2022 was the first time I heard the name of the first transgender inductee into the University of Wyoming chapter of the Kappa Kappa Gamma, sorority.  

Ironically, it was University of Wyoming Dean of Students Ryan O’Neal, who called it to my attention by censoring a display table in the student union. The object of his censorship read, “Artemis Langford is a male.”

Todd Schmidt, elder of Laramie’s Faith Community Church and owner of the sign, was unaware that his discussion starter ran afoul of any university policies. UW’s then-DEI officer, Kim Chestnut, and President Ed Seidel must have been equally unaware. Their explanatory email stated that the elder’s “interactions were not in obvious violation of UW policies.”

Nevertheless, days later, the same administration caved to pressure generated by astroturf activists and alumni who claimed that Schmidt’s interactions violated Wyoming Union Policies and Operating Procedures, Sec. 5, Sub. Sec. B, Rule 15, which does not tolerate “language or actions that discriminate or harass the above groups.” That listing of groups includes non-profits, like Faith Community Church. 

Seidel nakedly discriminated against Schmidt by revoking his tabling rights, triggering yet another free speech lawsuit against the University. After months of litigation, U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Freudenthal prohibited the University from keeping Schmidt out of the student union.

Her ruling pointed out that UW only censored one side of the debate. Those students who “believe that (the inductee) is female and belongs in a sorority” were neither “prohibited from debating Schmidt or speaking (that) name,” she wrote. “Therefore, the University appears to be favoring one viewpoint over another.”

Freudenthal’s ruling strikes at the heart of the matter. Equal protection under the law requires clarity because it requires predictability. Authorities who sanction the actions of one person after they have allowed the very same action by another destroy the rule of law.

In this case, activists have been playing both ends against the middle for years. When it is advantageous they publicize his chosen name to the world. But when it is disadvantageous, they censor it and punish those with the temerity to say his name.

Many months before Schmidt put the sorority member’s name on the debate teaser in the student union, the student had publicly filed an application to become a member of the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority. When the sorority sisters objected to a male living in their home, they were bullied out of debating the matter openly, their lawsuit complaint says.

After this public debate was squelched, the inductee decided that he needed to make his name more public. Approaching a fellow reporter from UW student newspaper the Branding Iron, he volunteered for an interview about his Kappa conquest. The article was titled, “Kappa Kappa Gamma first to accept open-transgender student in UW history” (Branding Iron, October 12, 2022). His unredacted name was printed nine times.

How could Schmidt possibly know that the new sorority member wanted anonymity? More to the point, how could anybody engage in free and honest debate about the subject when the very words and concepts that are used by one side are prohibited from being spoken by the other side?

It’s Orwellian. But it has been going on for a long time.

Already at age 16, the student started using his new name with teachers and students at Lander High School, but not at home with his own parents. (Back then, we were assured that this wasn’t happening in Wyoming schools.)

Again, months after Schmidt was tossed from the UW student union for saying the student’s name to debate the issue—and after seven sorority sisters had tried to keep his name out of court documents in their suit against the sorority—the inductee sat for another publicity piece wherein he not only revealed his name, but also volunteered his likeness in a very clear photograph.  

Now he, with his male attorney, Alex Freeberg, is back in court. This time the lawfare is directed at Cassie Craven and John Knepper, who represented the plaintiffs against Kappa Kappa Gamma.

According to Freeberg, the ladies said too much. According to his complaint, the lawsuit “did not require defendants to allege any details.” The court only needed to know the inductee “had been voted into the sorority and was a transgender woman.”

But the whole issue rests upon those details that prove the claim that he is a male. How is anyone to debate the issue when those details are censored either from the student union or from the courtroom?

And when ordinary people are punished for stating what is obvious to everyone, both truth and freedom suffer. I don’t call that justice. I call that “deprivation of rights under color of law.” That’s the real crime.

 Jonathan Lange is a Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod pastor in Evanston and Kemmerer and serves the Wyoming Pastors Network. Follow his blog at https://jonathanlange.substack.com/. Email: JLange64@protonmail.com.