The story begins several years ago, when the League of Women Voters and Mormon Women for Ethical Government sued the legislature for refusing to enact a ballot initiative passed by Utahns to ban gerrymandering. At the time, Utah’s Supreme Court had a female majority, which sided with the plaintiffs. And this is where it starts to get complicated. Because since then, the court has expanded and the female majority is gone — and not a single new nominee was a woman. Republican leaders have also urged Utahns to reject female justices who were up for retention, and later pushed one of them out after her ex-husband had accused her of infidelity. Then there’s Judge Diana Gibson, who recently ruled in favor of an electoral map that established a district that could plausibly be won by a Democrat. Soon after, Republicans called for her impeachment and anonymous callers threatened to kill or rape her. For their part, conservative lawmakers say none of this has anything to do with gender; they simply believe the legislature should take charge on issues like redistricting. But for some of the women caught up in the fight, it feels like it’s a case of men who just don’t want women telling them what to do.
GUESTS –
Kate Zernike | National reporter at The New York Times. Her piece is called “A Gender War Explodes in Utah Over the Courts, Abortion and Representation.”
Emma Petty Addams | Co-Executive Director of Mormon Women for Ethical Government.
Jackie Morgan | Senior partner at Elevate Strategies.
Teneille Brown | Professor of law at the S.J. Quinney College of Law and Director of the Center for Law and Biomedical Sciences. She’s also the board president of Co-Equal Utah.
Airdate: Oct. 1, 2026