Key Takeaways
- Enes Kanter Freedom sued the Chicago Sky, Wintrust Arena’s owner, and the City of Chicago, alleging they violated his First Amendment rights by ejecting him from an August 23 game and banning him from the arena.
- Freedom says officials targeted his “WOMAN noun. adult human female” shirt, while Sky owner Michael Alter says security removed him after he argued with Natasha Cloud, stepped onto the court, and made himself “a threat.”
- The lawsuit escalates Freedom’s campaign against the WNBA’s transgender participation rules after league sources said he was ineligible for the 2027 draft and the league condemned “bad-faith efforts” to marginalize others.
Enes Kanter Freedom couldn't get into the WNBA. Now, a separate fight with the Chicago Sky has landed in federal court.
According to USA Today, the former NBA center filed a lawsuit on Thursday, September 3, over his removal from an August 23 Sky-Indiana Fever game and subsequent ban from Wintrust Arena, claiming the team and public authorities violated his First Amendment rights. Freedom's complaint names Chicago Women's Basketball Operations, LLC, the arena owner, the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, and the City of Chicago as defendants and alleges that they retaliated against him for protected speech.
Freedom calls the ejection “wrongful” and claims he became the target of “hateful attacks and discriminatory actions” based on his viewpoint and gender identity. “The Chicago Sky; MPEA, through Wintrust Arena Security; and the City of Chicago, by its Police Department, worked together to eject [Freedom] in retaliation for protected expressions,” the complaint states. The lawsuit also challenges the continuing arena ban as unconstitutional.
That is decidedly not how the Sky remembers the night.
Freedom was sitting courtside wearing a shirt reading “WOMAN noun. adult human female” when he got into a shouting match with Sky guard Natasha Cloud. Video showed Cloud approaching Freedom before he stood up, extended his arms, and stepped onto the court and past photographers. Security intervened and eventually escorted him from the arena.
Sky owner Michael Alter later said the issue wasn't simply Freedom's T-shirt. “It was pretty clear to us that his purpose of coming here was trying to be provocative and just see how much attention he could get,” Alter said.
He also disputed Freedom's portrayal of himself as a spectator removed for doing nothing: “We have five different security authorities that all agreed very quickly to throw him out because he made himself into a threat.”
Freedom is now asking a federal court to accept a very different account. “My T-shirt did what the whole @WNBA apparently couldn’t: define a woman,” he wrote on X while announcing the lawsuit. “No threats. No violence. Just biology. And somehow, that required a security escort.”
Freedom added, “You don’t have to agree with my speech, but you don’t get to silence me for it.”
The lawsuit turns what began as Freedom's attempted WNBA draft campaign into something considerably more concrete. He declared himself eligible for the 2027 draft while challenging the league's rules concerning transgender participation, despite no transgender woman ever having played in the WNBA.
League sources subsequently said Freedom and former NBA player Royce White aren't eligible. Freedom then demanded the league restrict eligibility explicitly to “biological females,” saying he'd “drop everything” if it did.
The WNBA has maintained that there are “no immediate eligibility matters” affecting the league and denounced “bad-faith efforts to use these topics to demean or marginalize others.”
