Latest news with #JBMcCuskey
Newsweek
5 days ago
- Politics
- Newsweek
The Supreme Court Can Save Women's Sports
Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the interpretation of facts and data. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear two cases related to the protection—and the preservation—of women's sports. This news should gladden the hearts of female athletes across the country. The Court's decision promises a legal reckoning that is long overdue. It also signals the turning of a tide. For most of the last four years, women concerned for the future of their sports have been confronted with brutal apathy from athletic administrators, government officials, and the courts—and silence from an intimidated public. But polls show a growing consensus among Americans that women's sports should be for women, and that Title IX has been stretched out of all resemblance to its original intent. Government officials and athletic associations need to protect women's sports and make sure that women are not robbed of their athletic opportunities, personal safety, and hard-earned accomplishments. States across the country have now passed laws—27 at last count—designed to protect women's sports. Challenges to two of those laws have now brought the subject to the nation's highest Court for a final ruling. In West Virginia v. B.P.J., West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey and attorneys for Alliance Defending Freedom are asking the court to review a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit that would invalidate a West Virginia law protecting fairness in women's sports. ADF represents former college soccer player Lainey Armistead, who intervened in the lawsuit. While captaining the women's soccer team at West Virginia State University, Armistead saw that a growing number of qualified female athletes were being sidelined—and in some cases, injured—by male athletes competing in women's events. After watching female athletes across the country lose opportunities to win in their sport, she decided to join the case. She's not the only one recognizing the physical danger posed to women competing with bigger, stronger, more aggressive male athletes—nor the humiliation so many women feel at being virtual spectators in their own sports, knowing, before competition even begins, that their best efforts will never be enough to overcome the inherent physical advantages enjoyed by men. In recent years, those advantages have cost thousands of women crucial athletic opportunities for achievement on the playing field, including major tournaments and championship events. WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 07: The U.S. Supreme Court is seen on April 07, 2025 in Washington, DC. WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 07: The U.S. Supreme Court is seen on April 07, 2025 in Washington, is representing two of those women, former Idaho college track-and-field athletes Madison Kenyon and Mary Kate Marshall in Little v. Hecox, the other case the High Court has agreed to hear. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit—like the Fourth Circuit—has moved to squelch a state law protecting women's sports. Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador is asking the Justices to review that lower court decision. The Idaho case is supported by 102 female athletes, parents, coaches, and sports officials, who signed off on a brief that includes testimony after testimony from women who lost some of their best opportunities to male athletes. The breadth of pushback against these two appeals court rulings undoubtedly influenced the Supreme Court's decision to hear these cases. Twenty-six other states signed a brief in support of the West Virginia case, collectively describing the lower court's ruling as "profoundly wrong" and warning of its "far-reaching consequences." Common sense, too, is on the side of female athletes—overwhelmingly. In 2017, thousands of men ran 400-meter times that were faster than the personal bests of Olympic gold medalists Sanya Richards-Ross and Allyson Felix. That's pure biology: Boys have larger hearts, bigger lungs, denser bones, and stronger muscles. Laws and policies that leave the door open for male athletes to compete in women's sports must eventually, inevitably lock women out of any chance of succeeding in those competitions. If the only thing women can hope to glean from participating in sports is the chance to watch male athletes blow past them on the track, on the courts, and in the pool; if all that awaits them after the years of hard work they bring to competition is an increased risk of injury; if the best they can hope for is to clap politely while males win the medals, the attention, and the scholastic opportunities; then, soon enough, there will be no more female athletes in "women's sports." There will be no women's sports at all. That is the crux of what the U.S. Supreme Court will be deciding: not what women's sports will look like going forward, but whether there will be any point to women's sports existing at all. Suzanne Beecher is legal counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom. The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Fox News
6 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Camp Counselor Recounts Her Escape From Deadly Texas Floods
Last Friday, floodwaters devastated Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian summer camp located in Hunt, Texas. At least 27 girls and counselors have been confirmed dead. Holly Kate Hurley, a counselor at Camp Mystic, joins the Rundown to describe what she witnessed and share her story of survival. The Supreme Court announced it would hear two cases involving transgender athletes in Idaho and West Virginia, potentially settling the nationwide debate over trans competitors in sports. This announcement came just one week after the Trump administration reached an agreement with the University of Pennsylvania over this issue. West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey joins the podcast to break down exactly why transgender athletes competing in women's sports violates Title IX. Plus, commentary from 'The Mom Wars' podcast and Substack creator, Bethany Mandel. Photo Credit: AP Learn more about your ad choices. Visit
Yahoo
03-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Supreme Court takes up transgender school athlete bans
The Supreme Court agreed Thursday to decide whether states can ban transgender athletes from competing on girls and women's school sports teams. The justices said they would hear appeals from Republican leaders in Idaho and West Virginia defending their state bans. A decision is expected by next summer. The move sets up another major dispute over transgender rights before the conservative-majority court that recently upheld Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for minors. In the wake of that decision, the justices Monday sent back to lower courts disputes involving Idaho's Medicaid prohibition on transition-related surgeries, North Carolina's similar ban in its state-sponsored health plan and Oklahoma's refusal to change the listed sex on transgender people's birth certificates. But the Supreme Court held onto the transgender athlete cases that had piled up on their docket, weighing requests from Idaho and West Virginia's Republican attorneys general to get involved now. 'It's a great day, as female athletes in West Virginia will have their voices heard,' West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey (R) said Thursday. 'We are confident the Supreme Court will uphold the Save Women's Sports Act because it complies with the U.S. Constitution and complies with Title IX. And most importantly: it protects women and girls by ensuring the playing field is safe and fair,' he added. The justices' decision next term stands to impact a wave of laws restricting transgender athletes' participation in 27 states. In 2020, Idaho became the first state in the nation to ban trans students from competing on teams that match their gender identity. In February, President Trump signed an executive order opposing transgender women and girls' participation in female sports. 'Female athletes are losing medals, podium spots, public recognition, and opportunities to compete due to males who insist on participating in women's sports,' Idaho wrote in its petition. 'So much of what women and girls have achieved for themselves over the course of several decades is being stolen from them—all under the guise of 'equality.'' The laws have sparked an array of legal challenges that argue they violate the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause and Title IX, the federal law against sex discrimination in schools. Many of the challenges are spearheaded by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which represents the plaintiffs in both Idaho and West Virginia. 'Like any other educational program, school athletic programs should be accessible for everyone regardless of their sex or transgender status. Trans kids play sports for the same reasons their peers do — to learn perseverance, dedication, teamwork, and to simply have fun with their friends,' said Joshua Block, senior counsel for the ACLU's LGBTQ & HIV Project. 'Categorically excluding kids from school sports just because they are transgender will only make our schools less safe and more hurtful places for all youth. We believe the lower courts were right to block these discriminatory laws, and we will continue to defend the freedom of all kids to play.' In Idaho, the civil rights group represents Lindsay Hecox, a transgender runner who wanted to compete on Boise State University's women's track and cross-country teams. Lower court rulings allowed Hecox to try out for the teams, leading to Idaho's latest appeal. 'Petitioners seek to create a false sense of national emergency when nothing of the sort is presented by this case. This case is about a four-year old injunction against the application of H.B. 500 with respect to one woman, which is allowing her to participate in club running and club soccer in her final year of college,' Hecox's legal team wrote in court filings last year. The ACLU similarly urged the court to turn away the appeal in West Virginia, where a lower court blocked the state from enforcing its ban against Becky Pepper-Jackson, a high school student who throws discus and shot put for her school's girls track-and-field team. When Pepper-Jackson first sued the state over its restrictions on transgender athletes, she was 11 years old and in middle school. Both Idaho and West Virginia's attorneys general brought on Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal powerhouse, to defend their bans. Updated at 9:54 a.m. EDT Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Fox News
16-06-2025
- Business
- Fox News
AG leading suit against NY effort to punish energy firms for climate change warns of major repercussions
A New York law signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul that would impose as much as $75 billion in liabilities on major fossil fuel companies by forcing them to pay into a state "climate super-fund" depending on their emissions would hurt way more than the firms themselves, West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey warned Friday. "It would be catastrophic, not just for the economies of West Virginia, Kentucky and Pennsylvania, but the economies of every state," McCuskey said, as those states are likely to see the most negative effects due to their role in powering New York's grid. "If we don't have access to reliable, inexpensive electricity, and the only way to make that right now is with fossil fuels, every American's energy bills are going to skyrocket." McCuskey warned that it is those same energy companies that provide livable conditions and conveniences for the same New York City dwellers who boosted the policy. The skyscrapers dotting the city relied on Pennsylvania steel and West Virginia power to be built in the first place. McCuskey said it was "ironic" to see "people in Manhattan looking down on them – it's that very coal power that they're claiming now destroyed their city." McCuskey, leading about a score of other states in trying to halt New York's law, said costs will rise across the board, including for commodities, transportation and other concerns not immediately thought of as being directly linked to fossil fuels or physical infrastructure. Hochul has rebutted such opposition, claiming increasingly strong meteorological patterns are increasingly burdening New Yorkers with billions of dollars in health and environmental "consequences -- due to polluters that have historically harmed our environment." "Establishing the Climate Superfund is the latest example of my administration taking action to hold polluters responsible for the damage done to our environment and requiring major investments in infrastructure and other projects critical to protecting our communities and economy," Hochul said in a statement. McCuskey added that a second suit is confronting Vermont's similar 2024 law as well – though he warned the Green Mountain State's version does not have a $75 billion cap like the neighboring Empire State. Vermont Republican Gov. Phil Scott declined to veto or sign that law, rendering it enacted. State Rep. Martin LaLonde, D-South Burlington, predicted that "Big Oil will fight this in the courts," but said in a statement at the time that the "stakes are too high and costs too steep for Vermonters to release corporations that caused this mess from their obligation to help clean it up." Hearings in the New York suit are expected to begin in July, McCuskey said, and he expected that no matter what happens in Albany's judiciary, the Supreme Court will likely have to have the final word. About a dozen other states, including Illinois, Massachusetts and California, are pursuing similar legislation, McCuskey said, so litigators may soon have their hands full. "The New York case is so incredibly important, $75 billion is outrageous. But if it were to be $75 billion times X number of states, it becomes the kind of lawfare that bankrupts energy companies," he said. A suit in Louisiana brought by coastal Plaquemines Parish recently cost Chevron billions for pollution plaintiffs claimed had been caused by its subsidiary Texaco – albeit decades ago, before the two companies were linked. McCuskey said energy development and the coal and gas industries are so inextricably tied to West Virginia that a loss would be just as catastrophic for Mountaineers. In the state, primed to celebrate its 162nd birthday on Friday, concerns over the undermining of the energy industry have been a rare point of bipartisanship on any state or federal issue. Then-Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., so enraged actress Bette Midler for opposing provisions of then-President Joe Biden's "Build Back Better" plan that she categorized West Virginians as poor and "strung-out" and wrongly wielding political power for having only the population the "size of Brooklyn." Manchin and now-Sen. Jim Justice II – then the state's governor – didn't take kindly to that characterization, with Justice taking to the House floor in Charleston and holding up his bulldog, Babydog -- declaring that Midler could "kiss her heiney."
Yahoo
07-06-2025
- Yahoo
Stories of the Week: June 1 through June 7
CLARKSBURG, – Here are some of the top stories this week on the WBOY 12News Facebook page. West Virginia Attorney General J.B. McCuskey is warning of Chinese vape products disguised as smart devices that may attract children. FirstEnergy has completed its third solar site in West Virginia. Students at four schools in Harrison County attended their final last day ahead of mergers and consolidations that will begin in the fall. A WVU nursing student is being recognized for helping to save another student's life by giving him CPR. The community gathered to send off the WVU Baseball team ahead of its Super Regional matchup with LSU. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
