U of A Rescinds Job Offer to Applicant Who Signed Legal Brief Against Fairness in Women’s Sports Law

The University of Arkansas School of Law has withdrawn a job offer to an applicant who signed a legal brief against a state law protecting fairness in women’s sports last November.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette writes:

Less than a week after announcing Emily Suski as the next dean for the University of Arkansas School of Law, the university has rescinded that offer, citing “feedback from key external stakeholders.” . . .

Suski, a professor of law and the associate dean for strategic and institutional priorities at the University of South Carolina Joseph F. Rice School of Law, was appointed dean of the UA Law School, effective July 1.

The newspaper also reports that Arkansas Senate President Pro Tempore Bart Hester (R — Cave Springs) told university officials he believed Suski was unfit to lead the law school after he learned that she opposed a law in West Virginia protecting fairness in women’s sports and that she supported former President Joe Biden’s nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 2020, Idaho passed The Fairness in Women’s Sports Act to prevent male student athletes from competing against girls in women’s athletics at school. However, the ACLU sued, claiming the act is unconstitutional, and a panel of judges from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the law.

The case has been combined with a federal lawsuit against a similar measure West Virginia enacted.

Both state laws are currently before the U.S. Supreme Court, and a decision in the case could affect similar laws nationwide.

In November, Suski joined an amicus brief from the group Scholars of Equal Opportunity and Antidiscrimination Law encouraging the U.S. Supreme Court to rule against West Virginia’s law that protects fairness in women’s sports.

In 2021, lawmakers in Arkansas passed Act 461 preventing male student athletes from competing against girls in women’s athletics at school. Act 461 is very similar to the West Virginia law that the amicus brief opposed. Given that fact, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R — Jonesboro) told The New York Times that Suski’s views expressed in last November’s amicus brief are inconsistent with Arkansas law.

As Family Council has said for years, letting men compete in women’s sports reverses decades of advancements for women, and it effectively erases girls’ athletics.

It hampers their ability to compete for athletic scholarships and hurts their professional opportunities as adults.

Concerned Women for America reports that more than 1,900 male athletes who claim to be female have taken first place medals away from women and girls.

Female swimmers, powerlifters, cyclists, sprinters, volleyball players, and others have seen their sports radically altered by men who claim to be women. In some sports, it can even be dangerous.

Most Americans agree that athletes should compete according to their biological sex — not their gender identity.

Given what a significant role the dean has at the law school, we believe the University of Arkansas made the right decision by withdrawing the job offer, and we appreciate Sen. Hester’s leadership in this matter.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.