Nebraska Supreme Court declines legal challenge to ‘Fairness for Girls’ measure

LINCOLN — The Nebraska Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge from a Nebraska voter about the measure that would let Nebraska voters decide whether to constitutionally limit sports participation in public K-12 schools and colleges to teams of biologically male, female or coed students. 

The decision was first reported by Nebraska Public Media. With the legal challenge gone, the measure will appear on the November ballot. 

On Monday, Cara Ullman filed a lawsuit asking the Supreme Court to overturn the secretary of state’s decision to put the “Fairness for Girls” measure on the ballot, arguing that the measure’s object statement doesn’t comply with state law because it doesn’t properly describe the “legal effect of the filing of the petition and the object sought to be secured by submitting the measure to the voters.”

Ullman, a registered Democrat, asked the Supreme Court to weigh in because the deadline to certify the ballot is next week. The failed challenge came after the state’s top election official, Bob Evnen, announced that the petition effort had collected enough valid signatures to be on the November ballot. 

The measure would “amend the Nebraska Constitution to establish constitutional protections for sex-separate athletics to ensure equal access to athletic opportunities for females,” according to the measure language. 

If passed, it would constitutionally cement an existing state law requiring that all student-athletes who compete in public K-12 or college sports compete on a team that matches their sex at birth.

The ballot language wouldn’t define “sex” in the state constitution itself, relying on the definition in state law that was passed last year, introduced by state Sen. Kathleen Kauth, that “sex” refers to whether someone “naturally has, had, will or would have, but for a congenital anomaly or intentional or unintentional disruption, the reproductive system that at some point produces, transports and utilizes” either eggs or sperm for fertilization. 

The general election is Nov 3.