CHICAGO — Former NBA center Enes Kanter Freedom filed a federal lawsuit Thursday, Sept. 3, 2026, against the Chicago Sky’s operating company, the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, and the City of Chicago over his Aug. 23 ejection from a Sky–Indiana Fever game at Wintrust Arena and an indefinite ban from Sky home games, Front Office Sports and the New York Post reported.

The 15-page complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois alleges the defendants conspired to eject him for viewpoint expression and seeks an injunction lifting the ban plus nominal and compensatory damages, with a jury demand. Freedom was courtside in a black shirt reading “WOMAN noun. adult human female.” Late in the third quarter, Sky guard Natasha Cloud approached his seat shouting and pointing; he stood with arms outstretched and stepped toward the floor before security and Chicago police walked him out. Sky owner Michael Alter later said five security authorities agreed he had “made himself into a threat” and that he is banned indefinitely.

Freedom’s filing says he poses “no danger or immediate threat to public safety” and that Cloud “charged toward” him while he stood in “confusion and disbelief.” On X he framed the case as speech: “You don’t have to agree with my speech but you don’t get to silence me for it,” and in a separate post announced the complaint — “SEE YOU IN COURT!!!” — saying he was “peacefully exercising my First Amendment rights.” Wintrust Arena is a publicly financed venue run by MPEA, which is why the city and the authority sit in the caption next to a private WNBA franchise.

The suit lands in a season already soaked in sex-category fights. Freedom has said he wants to try out for the WNBA; the league has said he and Royce White are not eligible. Cloud has called him an “irrelevant person” and the surrounding culture fight a distraction. Courts will decide whether a paying customer’s shirt and stance at a government-tied arena are protected speech or a security call. Until then, the ban stands and the complaint is on the docket.

🚨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.— Enes Kanter FREEDOM (@EnesFreedom) September 3, 2026

Sources