Enes Kanter Freedom has filed a federal lawsuit against the Chicago Sky, the City of Chicago and the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, alleging his First Amendment rights were violated when he was ejected from a Sky home game and later banned from Wintrust Arena.
The complaint, filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, seeks a declaration that the ejection and indefinite ban were unconstitutional, an order lifting the ban, legal fees, and nominal and compensatory damages.
The former NBA center sat courtside on August 23 during Chicago’s game against the Indiana Fever wearing a T-shirt that read, “WOMAN noun. adult human female.”
Late in the third quarter, Sky guard Natasha Cloud approached him during a timeout and shouted. Freedom stood with his arms outstretched and took steps toward the court before security removed him from the arena.
Sky owner Michael Alter later said Freedom had “the potential to be a threat” after moving toward the floor and would not be allowed back until he could prove otherwise.
Freedom said he was “peacefully exercising” his First Amendment rights.
“No threats. No violence. Just biology,” he wrote. “You don’t have to agree with my speech but you don’t get to silence me for it.”
Cloud later called Freedom “an irrelevant person.” The Sky and WNBA did not comment on the filing.
