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A lawsuit filed Monday on behalf of three Oregon student athletes who challenged transgender girls’ rights to compete in female-only sports is part of a nationwide strategy by the America First Policy Institute to use Title IX to limit those athletes’ participation.
The federal lawsuit was first reported by KATU-TV and picked up by several outlets. Less noted was the role of the Arlington, Va.-based think tank in coordinating the legal strategy and assisting the plaintiffs, even though the America First Policy Institute’s attorneys are listed on the complaint.
The AFPI is a nonprofit founded in 2021 to develop President Donald Trump’s agenda—its board chair is the conservative economist Larry Kudlow and its vice president is former Homeland Security secretary Chad Wolf. The think tank is known in D.C. circles as “the White House in waiting” because of the role it played in shaping policy for Trump’s second term—including a crackdown on transgender athletes competing in women’s sports.
Leigh Ann O’Neill, an attorney with America First’s Center for Litigation, spoke to WW today, and discussed how the think tank coordinated the legal strategy in Oregon, which she says is designed to increase federal scrutiny on a statewide policy.
In February, Trump signed an executive order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” which denies transgender women the opportunity to participate in women’s sports.
Since then O’Neill says, AFPI has taken a series of steps to notify the feds about the Oregon Department of Education’s “gender expansive” policy, which currently prohibits schools from “excluding gender expansive students from participating in school athletics and activities that align with their consistently asserted gender identity” based on that identity alone.
The AFPI filed a letter with U.S. Department of Education secretary Linda McMahon on May 5, requesting a formal investigation into ODE and the Oregon School Activities Association. O’Neill says back then, the institute was already in touch with some Oregon student athletes.
Since that complaint, she says, the institute has been “engaged by individuals” and that “an acquaintance” also helped connect the organization with other families.
In its lawsuit, the plaintiffs’ counsel argues girls are facing sex discrimination by having to compete against transgender athletes.
The plaintiffs and their counsel have maintained the lawsuit is not inherently anti-transgender. One of the student athletes, Madelyn Eischen, told several news outlets she is not anti-trans and that she thinks there are other ways to accommodate those athletes.
In its Monday lawsuit, the organization points specifically to the complaint the feds are already investigating around whether a transgender McDaniel High School student-athlete should have been allowed to compete at girls’ track meets. But it goes further to challenge organizations including ODE, the OSAA, Gov. Tina Kotek, and three school districts: PPS, Newberg-Dundee Public Schools, and the Forest Grove School District.
O’Neill says more is to come: AFPI is working on further litigation in the hopes that the U.S. Department of Education will expand its current federal investigation into Portland Public Schools to encompass all of Oregon. Specifically, she points toward a state track and field championship where two girls “chose to silently protest” the Oregon policy “by refusing to stand on the podium with a male competitor.”
O’Neill says the girls suffered for that decision. “They were relegated off to the side and told they could not be in pictures with the other competitors,” she says. “They weren’t given their medals at the same time.”
Spokespeople for Portland Public Schools and the Oregon Department of Education said they do not comment on pending litigation. Nate Lowery, spokesman for OSAA, said the association is “reviewing the suit with its legal counsel” and has no additional comment at this time.
WW could not immediately reach spokespeople at the Forest Grove School District or Newberg-Dundee Public Schools for comment. It also could not immediately reach spokespeople with Kotek’s office.
