Kanter Freedom files suit vs. Sky, Wintrust Arena

Enes Kanter Freedom has filed a lawsuit against the Chicago Sky and the owners of Wintrust Arena, alleging that his First Amendment rights were violated when he was removed from a Sky home game last month and subsequently banned from attending WNBA games at the arena. Kanter Freedom's 15-page complaint was filed Thursday in the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division. In addition to the Sky, the complaint names the city of Chicago and Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, which owns and operates Wintrust Arena, as defendants. Kanter Freedom was involved in a verbal altercation with Sky point guard Natasha Cloud late in the third quarter of an Aug. 23 game against the Indiana Fever. He was sitting courtside in a black T-shirt that read: "WOMAN noun. adult human female." When a timeout was called, Cloud walked toward Kanter Freedom and shouted at him. He was standing with his arms outstretched and took a few steps toward the court before security cut him off and directed him to leave. Sky owner Michael Alter, speaking to reporters when Kanter Freedom's ban was announced last week, said Kanter Freedom had begun to "chirp" and "engage" Cloud in what he believes was an effort to provoke her. Cloud has been a vocal supporter of LBGTQ+ rights. "[Kanter Freedom] has demonstrated to us, unequivocally, that he has the potential to be a threat," Alter said last week. "That he is not able to control himself to the extent where we can be comfortable that he may [not] step towards the court again and towards the players. So that is the basis for which we will not permit him into the building until such time as he can prove otherwise." Alter went on to say that he believes in the First Amendment and that people have the right to their beliefs -- political, religious or otherwise -- but fans who enter the building are expected to follow league and team rules upon purchasing a ticket. "I heard him last night, he said, 'Well, I didn't cross the baseline,' as if though that's some magical threshold," Alter said last week. "One reason he didn't cross the baseline was because he was prevented from doing so. But regardless of that, the security people's job is not to wait until a threat intensifies. It's to avoid the threat from happening when [a] perceived threat occurs, and that's exactly what they did. "He started walking. They didn't wait to see how far he was going to walk or what he was going to do when he got there." In a social media post announcing his lawsuit on Thursday, Kanter Freedom said he was "peacefully exercising" his First Amendment rights when he was ejected. "My T-shirt did what the whole WNBA apparently couldn't: define a woman," Kanter Freedom wrote in his post. "No threats. No violence. Just biology. And somehow, that required a security escort. "You don't have to agree with my speech but you don't get to silence me for it. I will not be intimidated. I will not be silenced. I will continue to stand for women and defend free speech."