Key Points

  • The Ninth Circuit held that Lindsay Hecox's challenge to Idaho's Fairness in Women's Sports Act is moot because she is not enrolled at Boise State University.
  • Hecox's statement in a supplemental brief that she intends to re-enroll in Spring 2027 did not meet her burden, because a declaration of future intent offered to avoid mootness must be sufficiently concrete.
  • The panel distinguished its 2023 ruling, in which Hecox had described a concrete plan to re-enroll and a conversation with an academic advisor.
  • The panel vacated the district court's preliminary injunction against Idaho's enforcement of the Act and remanded with instructions to dismiss the case as moot.
  • The ruling follows the Supreme Court's June 30, 2026, decision in West Virginia v. B.P.J., which reversed the Ninth Circuit's affirmance and rejected Hecox's equal protection claims.

A federal appeals court on Nov. 5 ordered the dismissal of a lawsuit that challenged Idaho's Fairness in Women's Sports Act as discriminatory against transgender athletes. The court held that the case is moot because the plaintiff, Lindsay Hecox, is no longer enrolled at Boise State University. The ruling comes after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Hecox's constitutional claims in June.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit vacated the preliminary injunction against Idaho's enforcement of the Act. The panel, made up of Judges Kim McLane Wardlaw, Ronald M. Gould and Morgan Christen, sent the case back to the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho with instructions to dismiss it. The panel ruled in a short unsigned order, and no judge wrote separately.

The decision turned on what a plaintiff must show to keep a case alive after leaving the setting that gave rise to it. Hecox told the court in a supplemental brief that she "intends to re-enroll in Spring 2027," but the panel held that the statement "is insufficient to meet her burden." In a 2023 ruling, the court had kept the case going after Hecox described specific steps she had taken toward returning to the university.

Hecox sued Idaho Gov. Bradley Little, members of the State Board of Education, Boise State, the Boise school district and other state and local officials. Two others, Madison Kenyon and Mary Marshall, joined the case as intervenors and appealed alongside the state.

According to the panel's order, Hecox brought an as-applied challenge to the Act's biological sex classification. She argued that there was a "lack of substantial relationship between the law's biological sex classification and the State's interests in safety and competitive fairness," and that the Act discriminated against transgender athletes.

The district court preliminarily enjoined Idaho from enforcing the Act, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed in a 2024 decision. On June 30, 2026, in West Virginia v. B.P.J., the Supreme Court reversed that decision and rejected Hecox's claims under the Equal Protection Clause. "The Supreme Court's holding thus clearly rejected the narrow basis upon which we affirmed the district court's preliminary injunction," the panel wrote.

Mootness had already come up at the Supreme Court. According to the panel, Hecox stated after the justices agreed to hear her case that she "will cease playing women's sports in any context covered by the Idaho law." The Supreme Court rejected her suggestion that the case was moot, the panel noted, because she had changed her mind before and "remains an enrolled student at Boise State."

That fact has since changed. After the Supreme Court sent the case back, the panel ordered supplemental briefing on whether the case is moot and whether B.P.J. affected any other part of it. "Both sides agree that Hecox is not enrolled at Boise State," the panel wrote. The Boise State registrar also submitted a declaration stating that Hecox is not currently enrolled, and the panel granted a motion to supplement the record.

The panel acknowledged that under its 2001 decision in Clark v. City of Lakewood, a party's intent to resume an activity may be enough to show a live controversy. But citing its 2017 decision in Bayer v. Neiman Marcus Group, the panel held that "when a party relies on a declaration of future intent to avoid mootness, such declaration must be sufficiently concrete."

The panel compared Hecox's current filing with the record from 2023, when it found that her earlier disenrollment did not moot the case. At that time, the panel wrote, "she expressed a concrete plan to re-enroll after establishing Idaho state residency and try out for the track and cross-country teams" and "had a conversation with a BSU academic advisor" to plan her return.

"By contrast, here she offers only a conclusory statement of intent to enroll in Spring 2027 without identifying tangible or actual steps taken to effectuate re-enrollment," the panel wrote. Without more, it held, her non-enrollment means the case is no longer "a present controversy as to which effective relief can be granted," the test for a live case that the panel took from a 1988 Ninth Circuit decision.

The order did not address the second question in the supplemental briefing, whether B.P.J. affected any other aspects of Hecox's case. The panel resolved the appeal on mootness alone.

The case drew friend-of-the-court briefs from across the country. Filers included the United States, two coalitions of states that included Nebraska and New York, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association, and a group of companies that included Nike Inc. Alliance Defending Freedom represented the intervenors, and the American Civil Liberties Union was among Hecox's counsel.

W. Scott Zanzig of the Office of the Idaho Attorney General argued for the state defendants. Andrew Barr of Cooley LLP argued for Hecox. Lauren R. Adams of the Women's Liberation Front filed an amicus brief for that group.

The case, Hecox v. Little, Nos. 20-35813 and 20-35815, now returns to the District of Idaho, which must dismiss it as moot under the panel's order.