A private Christian university appears to have been the first to violate a new Kansas law banning transgender athletes from girls' and women's sports.
As reported by Jason Alatidd of The Topeka Capital-Journal, Ottawa University officials say the school's women's volleyball team didn't intend to violate the new Kansas law when a transgender athlete was on the roster for an August match. The athlete was later removed from the roster after an inquiry by a state legislator, but officials say it was due to a separate eligibility issue discovered when checking how the trans athlete ban applied.
"One of the games in which she was on the roster was a Junior Varsity 2 match with a Kansas community college opponent, which resulted in an unintentional violation of the Kansas Fairness in Women's Sports Act," Ottawa University Kansas president Reggies Wenyika told The Capital-Journal.
The transgender athlete wasn't allowed to participate on the team after an unrelated eligibility issue was discovered.
"OU uncovered a separate issue with the student's eligibility, making the student ineligible for participation," Wenyika said. "Since that time, the student has not been on the team roster. Furthermore, we have taken additional steps to educate ourselves and our athletic staff on what we are and are not permitted to do under the new law."The incident appears to be the first reported violation of the House Bill 2238. The Fairness in Women's Sports Act was enacted by the Republican-led Legislature along a largely party line vote over the veto of Democratic governor Laura Kelly.
The Capital-Journal found out about the violation through an email from Wenyika to Rep. Carrie Barth, R-Baldwin City, who forwarded the email to Republican attorney general Kris Kobach's private email, Alatidd reported.
The email was among 940 pages of documents turned over to the newspaper in response to an open records request for emails to or from Kobach's private email address that were in the possession of the attorney general's office.
In an Aug. 31 email to Kobach, Barth, who has a daughter who is a freshman on Ottawa's women's volleyball team, touted record-setting attendance at a University of Nebraska volleyball match, thanked the attorney general for a call earlier that day and forwarded him Wenyika's email from that same morning.
"Based on his email it appears that they are trying to do the right thing and at this time I don't see any action needed unless something changes," Barth said. "The one thing that does conserve [sic] me is that he references Title IX which is to protect women's rights and women's sports."
It is unclear what action the attorney general could take. The law doesn't bestow any enforcement power on the attorney general.
"Legislators seek the Attorney General's advice on legal issues all of the time independent of the agency's enforcement responsibilities," Charles Dalton, Kobach's chief of staff, told The Capital-Journal. "When duly elected representatives of the people reach out to our office, we respond."
Under the law's enforcement provisions, violations can turn into lawsuits filed by affected students and public schools. But the language of the law appears to only authorize lawsuits against offending public schools and other governmental entities. it does not appear to authorize lawsuits against private universities, according to Alatidd.