Three Women Left In Lawsuit Against Sorority Over UW Transgender Member

A long-expected amended complaint in the civil lawsuit of a handful of Kappa Kappa Gamma members suing sorority leadership over the induction of a transgender member was filed as a proposed action Monday with three of the original seven plaintiffs remaining. 

It’s a repackaging of the lawsuit that dates back to 2023, and which accuses Kappa Kappa Gamma leadership of violating its own bylaws to induct a transgender member in fall 2022 at its Wyoming-based chapter.

Seven women sued Kappa in the spring of 2023. When a federal judge denied the women anonymity, that number dwindled to six.

The women lost the lawsuit in 2023 when the same judge, District Court Judge Alan B. Johnson, dismissed their case by citing case law giving private organizations the right to dictate the terms of their own membership.

They appealed, but the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals said there was a chance Johnson’s order wasn’t final and therefore couldn’t be appealed.

On Monday, three plaintiffs — Hannah Holtmeier, Allison “Allie” Coghan and Haley Rutsch — submitted their proposed amended complaint to the U.S. District Court for Wyoming.

It adheres closely to Johnson’s demand that the women not make a spectacle of the transgender inductee, Artemis Langford, and instead focus on legal issues. The complaint calls Langford “the student” while identifying the plaintiffs by name.

The complaint also focuses on the technical interplay of the sorority’s bylaws and policies, and Ohio corporation laws since Kappa is headquartered in Ohio.

Yet, the case is filed federally because its parties live in different states and the controversy exceeds $75,000 in potential damages, the complaint says.

Ohio law allows people to sue an organization on its own behalf, if they believe the leadership’s direction is harming the organization’s future.

The women have invoked that law in a breach of fiduciary duty claim. They’ve also alleged breach of contract, fraudulent representation and violation of authority limits against sorority leadership.

Filed by Wyoming-based attorneys John Knepper and Cassie Craven, this proposed complaint sues the Kappa Kappa Gamma Sorority, its council President Mary Pat Rooney, Vice-Presidents Maria Brown, Barb Goettelman, Liz Wong and Nancy Campbell; Treasurer Kyle Donnelly; and panhellenic delegate Beth Black; plus four “Jane Does.” a move reserving potential culpability for figures not yet named.

Just How Involved

The lawsuit raises a question of how involved, if at all, University of Wyoming officials were in the transgender student’s induction.

The University has said it was not involved in Langford’s induction.

A paragraph in the new proposed complaint, however, says former UW Dean of Students Ryan O’Neil visited Kappa’s Wyoming chapter house after Langford’s initiation vote and before Langford’s official initiation to praise the sorority for inducting the new member.

“This meeting was arranged by the then chapter president, and it was described as due to the negative publicity about the admission of the student into Kappa,” the complaint says.

O’Neil told the students she thought what they were doing “was great and that she was so proud of them,” says the complaint.

The document says O’Neil said she knew the student well, and “what they were doing was beautiful.”

“Plaintiffs and other chapter members who disagreed with the student’s initiation were uncomfortable with the inappropriate praise heaped on the Wyoming chapter and the endorsement of the student’s Kappa membership by a University of Wyoming official,” the complaint reads.

In response, UW spokesman Chad Baldwin told Cowboy State Daily in a Monday email that “this allegation does not conflict with the university’s position that it doesn’t have a role in decisions about sorority and fraternity membership.”

And, Baldwin added, the university hasn’t been a party to this litigation, “nor is being proposed to be a party in this litigation.”

O’Neil no longer works for the university, Baldwin added in a text message response.

The Disputed Election

The lawsuit alleges that “the student” was not inducted into Kappa during the 2022 inductee-vetting “rush week,” but that chapter leaders, with the approval of headquarters, later conducted an ill-noticed and spontaneous vote about whether to induct Langford.

Though sorority rules call for the use of a voting application that uses secret ballots, this election required the women to post their email addresses with their votes, says the amended complaint.

Leaders at the chapter based on the University of Wyoming campus also urged women against voting down Langford’s membership, telling them they’d be considered bigots and they could face expulsion or suspension from the sorority if they didn’t have a “personality” focused reason for not voting Langford into the sorority, the complaint says.

When Holtmeier and Ramar asked about the student’s application, the membership chair “downplayed any possibility that the student would become a Kappa member, claiming there was a ‘99.9% chance’ that he would not be offered membership,” says the complaint.

The lawsuit complaint calls the inductee “he” while Johnson, in his various orders, has called the inductee “she,” as have sorority leaders in their filings.

The complaint says the membership chair of that era “intentionally provided limited notice of the only opportunity to meet the student as part of a plan hatched by national (sorority) representatives to ensure that Wyoming chapter members would not have a basis to vote against the student’s membership.”

Choate and Ramar weren’t allowed to vote because they weren’t present at the Sept. 19, 2022, chapter meeting where the vote was held, though their complaint says they should have been allowed to vote anyway, under the sorority’s rules.

There were two votes. Some women who felt pressured changed their votes to yes on the second vote, the complaint alleges. When enough votes were secured for “the student’s membership,” the voting stops, it adds.

The student was admitted by a narrow margin, the complaint says.

“Nothing about this voting process on Sept. 20, 2022, was normal,” says the complaint. “This irregular process violated Kappa’s Standing Rules and Policies in multiple ways.”

The women allege that Kappa stands in violation of its own bylaws and founding documents, which refer to expectations and induction procedures for Kappa “women” and “ladies.”

Kappas’ first, 1871 bylaws said “any lady may become a candidate for membership” if she has good moral character and above-average talent, and who goes to a college or seminary.

The group’s articles of incorporation say the sorority’s purpose is “to unite women,” the complaint adds.

Under Ohio law, notes the complaint, a corporation’s bylaws can’t conflict with its articles of incorporation.

The Guidance

The organization in 2022 dispatched a frequently-asked question guidance document saying the sorority under National Panhellenic Conference rules could define “woman” for purposes of recruitment as someone who lives and self-identifies as a woman, and that Kappa was “comprised of women and individuals who identify as women.”

The guidance was provided to Kappa leaders less than 60 days before the sorority’s convention and didn’t alter the bylaws, the complaint alleges, adding that the document was never voted on.

Conversely, says the complaint, Kappa’s own policies prohibit men from participating in recruitment events, and call Kappa a “single-sex organization.”

Kappa Kappa Gamma representatives did not return an email request for comment by publication time.

Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.