Former NBA center Enes Kanter Freedom has filed a federal lawsuit against the Chicago Sky, the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority (MPEA) and the City of Chicago, escalating a public feud with the WNBA that began with his ejection from a game last month.
Kanter, who played for the New York Knicks and Oklahoma City Thunder during his NBA career, announced the lawsuit on Thursday. It was filed in Illinois and alleges the three entities unjustly ejected him from the Chicago Sky's game against the Indiana Fever on August 23 at Wintrust Arena.
Kanter has thrown himself into the debate over queer athletes that has engulfed the WNBA in recent months, including an attempt to use eligibility rules to enter next year's draft. He was sitting courtside for the Sky's game against Sophie Cunningham, Caitlin Clark and the Fever when he had an altercation with Sky star Natasha Cloud.
He claims the three defendants mistreated him that night and that he did nothing wrong before they "combined and conspired to eject" him from the arena.
That night, Kanter wore a T-shirt printed with a definition of the word woman. "Woman. Noun," it read. "Adult human female," with the words woman and female highlighted in red. He insists the shirt did not violate the WNBA's Fan Code of Conduct.
T-shirt sparked courtside clash, lawsuit claims
While he admits to standing up and raising his arms during the game, Kanter says that was simply to celebrate a three-pointer by Cunningham. He has previously alleged that Cloud told him, "She's not going to sleep with you."
The lawsuit claims Cloud, "without provocation, initiated a vulgar, profanity-laced verbal tirade" against him. It further alleges she "charged nearly half the length of the court toward where Plaintiff Freedom was sitting courtside" before she "cursed and yelled at Plaintiff saying that Ms. Cunningham was not going to sleep with Plaintiff Freedom."
"Plaintiff Freedom believes that Cloud's attack was motivated and triggered by the message on Plaintiff's shirt and Plaintiff's widely publicized viewpoint on protecting the integrity of women only sports," the lawsuit continued.
Kanter demands injunction over Wintrust Arena ban
Kanter is suing all three bodies and demanding a permanent injunction lifting the ban that was imposed on him by Sky owner Michael Alter.
"The Chicago Sky; MPEA, through Wintrust Arena Security; and the City of Chicago, by its Police Department, worked together to eject Plaintiff in retaliation for protected expression, and continue to work together to enforce the ongoing, unconstitutional ban of Plaintiff from Wintrust Arena, which is public property owned by MPEA," the lawsuit stated.
Kanter's statement on X
Announcing the lawsuit in a post on X, Kanter wrote: "SEE YOU IN COURT!!! Just filed a federal complaint. I'm taking legal action over my ejection from the @ChicagoSky game while peacefully exercising my First Amendment rights."
"My T-shirt did what the whole @WNBA apparently couldn't: define a woman. 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," he continued.
"I will not be intimidated. I will not be silenced. I will continue to stand for women and defend free speech."
WNBA eligibility ruling and reaction
Kanter's efforts to play in the WNBA were dealt a blow last month when league officials ruled him ineligible for the 2027 draft.
A league source told Front Office Sports the WNBA is "not going to give oxygen to efforts designed to mock the league or use this topic to demean and marginalize others," describing Kanter's campaign as a "publicity stunt."
Last week, Cloud addressed the courtside clash with reporters. "I won't be talking about anything that happened with an irrelevant person," she said. "What I will focus on is what actually affects women and children."
"I will talk about real issues that face women, and it's not our [queer] human beings," she continued. "It's not our drag queens. It's not our gay community. There is a certain demographic of people that you can generally search. It's a simple Google search of what is the greatest threat to women and children in 2026 in the United States of America, and it's not going to be [queer] people."
Kanter, a Turkish-born center who spent 11 seasons in the NBA with the Utah Jazz, Thunder, Knicks, Portland Trail Blazers, Boston Celtics and Houston Rockets, became a US citizen in 2021 and legally changed his surname to Freedom. He has long been known for outspoken political activism outside basketball.
