Kristen Wagoner
Appearances
Morning Wire
Trump Targets DEI & Gender Policies | 1.25.25
The Trump administration has issued a number of executive orders that deal with gender identity as well as censorship and DEI in the federal government. And all of those come together to essentially restore the legal and scientifically sound definition of sex in federal law, meaning that we are created male and female and that sex is neither chosen nor changed.
Morning Wire
Trump Targets DEI & Gender Policies | 1.25.25
And that will have tremendous implications, both on women's rights with regard to sports, fairness, privacy, locker rooms, also what our children are being taught, and in numerous other areas.
Morning Wire
Trump Targets DEI & Gender Policies | 1.25.25
Well, at Alliance Defending Freedom, we have represented scores of female athletes that have been deprived not only of fairness on the athletic field, but also privacy in locker rooms, in dorm rooms, in showers, and safety. We also have represented students who have been deprived of free speech and counselors and teachers who have been compelled to use pronouns
Morning Wire
Trump Targets DEI & Gender Policies | 1.25.25
that don't reflect biological truth. We have represented parents who have been deprived of decision-making authority for kids and teachers deprived of conscience rights. And we've even seen schools that have been deprived of certain funding mechanisms because of this ideology.
Morning Wire
Trump Targets DEI & Gender Policies | 1.25.25
President Trump has issued an order telling the agencies in the executive branch that they must stop infusing all of these areas of federal law with this notion that we are created something other than male or female.
Morning Wire
Trump Targets DEI & Gender Policies | 1.25.25
I guarantee you, you'll see states like California, New York, Washington state try to undermine these executive orders. And because of the way that our system of government is set out, there will be bad states that will continue to try to undermine the rights of American citizens. And there will be litigation that continues. But the difference here is they can no longer say
Morning Wire
Trump Targets DEI & Gender Policies | 1.25.25
that federal law requires this in terms of the agency action. And now the power of the federal government in all of the places that it shows up is actually on the opposite side of this fight.
Morning Wire
Trump Targets DEI & Gender Policies | 1.25.25
And in addition, the Trump administration can go a step further and it can deprive institutions as well as state governments of federal funding when they refuse to recognize biological reality and common sense.
Morning Wire
Trump Targets DEI & Gender Policies | 1.25.25
It should do so assuming that the administrative agencies are putting teeth in these actions. So again, the way that the government works is the executive branch, the president, sets the agenda and tells the agencies what to do. And it's the agencies then that create the guidance and enforce what the president has said in federal law. So it will be critical that the agencies
Morning Wire
Trump Targets DEI & Gender Policies | 1.25.25
follow this direction and put real teeth into this by denying federal funding and by going after those states and those educational institutions that are not honoring the rights of Americans in this area.
Morning Wire
Trump Targets DEI & Gender Policies | 1.25.25
We are seeing progress, but there still is an uphill battle. My hope is that we're turning the corner on this issue. We've been fighting it for over 10 years now with regard to bathrooms, locker rooms, and more recently, eight or so years on the sports front.
Morning Wire
Trump Targets DEI & Gender Policies | 1.25.25
I think we're turning the page, but again, we have half of the states that have adopted laws to protect women and girls in sports as an example, and these are state laws. those are being challenged and argued that they are unconstitutional. So those cases will continue, but we will continue now to have the federal government on the side of women and girls rather than against us.
Morning Wire
Trump Targets DEI & Gender Policies | 1.25.25
I also think we can't possibly underestimate the importance of the federal government saying there are two sexes and that you cannot choose nor change biological reality, because that will play out in many different ways across the government. And it will stop the social engineering that we've been seeing that's happening through the power of the federal government.
Morning Wire
Trump Targets DEI & Gender Policies | 1.25.25
The executive order that President Trump issued on DEI is so critical because it removes DEI from federal government policies. And he was right to do so because DEI essentially is an attempt to socially engineer gender ideology and race into every facet of American life.
Morning Wire
Trump Targets DEI & Gender Policies | 1.25.25
And the very first step to take that back and to, as President Trump said, have a revolution of common sense is to, again, rid the government of DEI programs because it's a proven failure. It introduces risk, legal risk. It eliminates people advancing on the basis of merit. And it destroys unity, which President Trump has said is a high priority for him.
Morning Wire
Trump Targets DEI & Gender Policies | 1.25.25
they've been profoundly impactful i would say that law and culture work together you can't have one without the other and one doesn't necessarily lead the other but they both impact one another and so i would just say especially the work that the daily wire has done has been so critical in our efforts as an example on the gender identity front because the principle that you're establishing in the court before the supreme court or
Morning Wire
Trump Targets DEI & Gender Policies | 1.25.25
a principle you're establishing in a state or a federal law, it has to be plausible to the American people. It has to make sense to them. And Daily Wire, for example, has been one of the first that has come out and spoken clearly, succinctly, and without fear, with courage, on the importance of biological reality. When the law doesn't recognize the biological differences between men and women,
Morning Wire
Trump Targets DEI & Gender Policies | 1.25.25
Families get hurt. And most importantly, women and girls will suffer not only from equal opportunities, but they will lose their rights.
Morning Wire
Trump Targets DEI & Gender Policies | 1.25.25
I think of all of the priorities that he set out, they come back to one primary theme, which I would say is he's recognizing the stifling authoritarianism that we've seen at home. here in the United States and that we're witnessing abroad.
Morning Wire
Trump Targets DEI & Gender Policies | 1.25.25
Members of our international team have also said, you know, the entire world is watching right now, and they are rooting for Americans and for President Trump to turn the corner on a moment throughout the world that wants to return to the concept of inalienable rights, that wants to return to the rule of law and to a government that recognizes common sense values.
Morning Wire
Trump Targets DEI & Gender Policies | 1.25.25
So whether that's on immigration and what's happening at the border, whether it's weaponization of the federal government and the justice system against one's enemies, as we have seen, to censorship, which President Trump has said is a high priority for him to stop. The world is watching. And what is most important now is what happens next.
Morning Wire
Trump Targets DEI & Gender Policies | 1.25.25
And I think the whole world is cheering for him and his administration to follow through on its promises in these areas.
Morning Wire
Trump Targets DEI & Gender Policies | 1.25.25
We're thrilled with the promises that President Trump has made with regard to the revolution of common sense. He referred to that in his inaugural speech, that we're going to return back toward reality, toward common sense and the rule of law.
Morning Wire
Trump Targets DEI & Gender Policies | 1.25.25
And I think what it means for practical purposes is that he is intending to use the federal government to ensure we eradicate a toxic ideology that has wreaked havoc on Americans, both in terms of safety, opportunities and freedom.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Vivek's Vision for Ohio
Well, last night was a tremendous victory for TPUSA, Kyle Rittenhouse, and the right to speak freely on our college campuses. I think we have to go back to really a year ago, last March in 2024, when the TPUSA chapter at the University of Memphis decided to sponsor an event with Kyle Rittenhouse.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Vivek's Vision for Ohio
And they worked with the University of Memphis officials, created a ticketing system through TPUSA, and had the event all planned out to host about 300 kids, students. And it was open to the public. But what happened in that instance is that the university interfered with the ticketing system. It allowed disruptors to virtually take all of the tickets.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Vivek's Vision for Ohio
And then it allowed a mob rule to take over that event. And it had to be shut down because the university officials and the police refused to protect the speech of TPUSA. and of Kyle Rittenhouse. So last night after Alliance Defending Freedom sent a legal demand letter with very specific demands to the university, the university complied with those demands and TPUSA was able to move forward.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Vivek's Vision for Ohio
So we're so grateful for their courage and glad that they were welcomed back to campus. We also got one of the policies changed so that future students won't have to endure this again.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Vivek's Vision for Ohio
Yes, well, at ADF, we have about 450 legal victories on college campuses. And I have to tell you that in seeing many of those victories play out, the circumstances of this particular campus incident are some of the worst that we've seen.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Vivek's Vision for Ohio
Where at the University of Memphis, at this event a year ago, not only at the last minute did the university essentially take over the ticketing system to allow even more disruption to occur,
The Charlie Kirk Show
Vivek's Vision for Ohio
But it didn't even provide reasonable steps to protect the safety of TPUSA members, as well as Kyle Rittenhouse, leading them out in front of a mob and having that mob then chase those TPUSA members, threaten to kill them, spit on their cars to pursue them. It was just the circumstances were so deeply disturbing and fell so far short of of constitutional and state law requirements.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Vivek's Vision for Ohio
The university officials are not allowed to let mobs rule and to essentially engage in a heckler's veto. So again, it takes courage to stand up, but thank God for these members who did as well as for Kyle.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Vivek's Vision for Ohio
Oh, thanks for asking. Well, first, I would just say we have a student's rights handbook on our website, ADFlegal.org. We provide all of our services free of charge. And we believe that censorship, not only on campuses, but in our workplaces and through both government collusion with private collusion online, is the biggest issue that we have to fight today.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Vivek's Vision for Ohio
So a lot of our resources are going towards that, as well as fighting gender identity ideology and expanding parental rights. Because we do believe that gender ideology has been a Trojan horse to essentially compel speech by the government and to take away our rights. And when we allow censorship to continue, we know that most countries around the world have free speech protections.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Vivek's Vision for Ohio
It's only a matter of whether citizens insist that the government provide it. So we love being able to serve organizations like yours and the good work you're doing.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Vivek's Vision for Ohio
Well, we're thinking we're going to win and we're going to keep at it until we do win. It feels like we're starting to turn a corner. But man, Charlie, I think it's so important to go back to the beginning because it does dovetail closely with the work that you're doing on campuses. And really, the very first case that was filed in the United States was a case ADF filed, but it was on behalf of
The Charlie Kirk Show
Vivek's Vision for Ohio
of three young girls who were in high school. They were freshmen and sophomore and two boys had come in. They were previously competing three weeks earlier as boys. Three weeks later, they're competing as girls and they ended up displacing essentially 85 opportunities for girls to advance to other competitions and took 15 different state titles in just like a three-year period.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Vivek's Vision for Ohio
So that's where it started. And it's nearly 10 years that we've been fighting this battle. We have seen twists and turns along the way. And I'm thrilled to see President Trump kind of finish what he started in the first term to again stand for equal opportunities for girls. But we have a lot of a lot of fighting still to do, as you can probably tell, with the cases that have been filed.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Vivek's Vision for Ohio
And we know that the issue isn't just solved at the federal level. We have to have Congress pass legislation, and we also need to have states fall in line to protect the rights of women and girls. So there's a long legal battle ahead. Let me just say this. We have two petitions at the U.S.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Vivek's Vision for Ohio
Supreme Court right now on this issue, and we need the court to take the issue up because 25 states have passed laws to protect girls, and the ACLU is challenging the rights of these states to protect the rights of girls.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Vivek's Vision for Ohio
Largely punted and delayed. I would say that there's a decision called the Bostock decision, which involved whether sex included gender identity in the employment context. And that was several years ago. And I would say activists on the left are trying to use that decision to say somehow that that means that women don't have equal rights. They're misusing that.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Vivek's Vision for Ohio
And in that Bostock decision, the Supreme Court carved out essentially and said, we're not saying that this applies in any other way. So we believe that the court is going to affirm these rights when it does take this case. The last thing I would say on what the Supreme Court's doing right now is, first of all, they're considering whether to take the women's sports issue.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Vivek's Vision for Ohio
We have two petitions that are asking them to take these cases. And then the second thing is in June, probably about June, we will see the Supreme Court decide a case called Scrimeti, which involves whether states can pass laws to protect young children from undergoing cross-sex hormones and permanent irreversible harm in this area.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Vivek's Vision for Ohio
That decision could also impact the rights of women and girls moving forward. And we're thrilled to be able to have helped pass legislation in 26 states where states have passed the laws to protect minors.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Vivek's Vision for Ohio
So we have to think about this both in terms of a political issue, getting good people in office, then in terms of a public policy issue, getting them to pass good laws, and then also defending those laws in court and preserving the rights of families to be able to raise their children consistent with their values.