A Washington teen wrestler’s Title IX fight has reached the U.S. Supreme Court after she alleged that a male opponent sexually assaulted her during a high-school match.
Alliance Defending Freedom announced Friday that it had filed an emergency application in the case involving Kallie Keeler and her mother, Stephanie Brown. The request asks the justices to intervene while the family appeals lower-court decisions involving girls’ sports, safety, and parental notice.
Keeler was 15 at the time. Her first event of the season was a girls-only tournament backed by the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association and her school district.
For the day’s last bout, coaches and a tournament official sent her to face a wrestler from another school. Keeler and Brown thought the opponent was female, and the family says nobody corrected that assumption.
Keeler noticed that the opponent seemed stronger and more powerful than wrestlers she had previously faced. She says she learned only afterward that the athlete was male. During the bout, Keeler alleges, the athlete put fingers through her spandex and penetrated her private areas. The alleged assault and the response from school officials now form the core of the Supreme Court request.
The report came quickly, but the case moved slowly
Brown reported the incident quickly and submitted video that ADF says shows her daughter’s distressed reaction during the incident. According to ADF, school officials took little action.
The family then asked courts to enforce Title IX protections and recognize Brown’s right to know before her daughter was placed in a potentially unsafe match. A federal district court declined that request, and the Ninth Circuit reached the same result.
The lower-court decisions left Keeler with a choice, according to the filing: compete against male wrestlers or stop participating in sports.
The next wrestling season is part of the emergency request
K.M.K. v. Washington Interscholastic Activities Association, the case named in the application, seeks an injunction while the appeal continues.
The filing says officials will not let Keeler withdraw from matches against males without penalty. It also says they will not notify Brown ahead of such a matchup so she can make the choice herself.
That timing matters because the girls’ wrestling season is scheduled to begin in November. ADF argues Keeler could be forced to miss the season, losing the equal opportunity to compete that Title IX promises.
The application also says Brown will remain shut out of decisions about her daughter’s participation. It argues Washington officials could restore the sex-based sports system used previously and permitted by state law.
ADF says safety should not decide who gets to compete
John Bursch, ADF’s senior counsel and vice president of appellant advocacy, said, “No girl should have to choose between playing the sport she loves and her safety.”
Bursch argued that Washington’s policy forces female athletes to compete against males and violates Title IX’s guarantee of equal opportunities for girls.
He also said Keeler was 15 when the alleged assault occurred and accused state officials of minimizing her harm while pursuing a political agenda. That is ADF’s argument as the family asks the Supreme Court to require safety protections and advance parental notice during the appeal.