Nebraska voters head to the polls Tuesday to decide Measure 442, a constitutional amendment that would require public schools, colleges, universities and certain private schools to designate every athletic team as male, female or coed — and would bar teams set aside for girls and women from being open to male students. The measure arrives after the Nebraska Supreme Court unanimously upheld its validity earlier this month, clearing the way for the Nov. 3 statewide vote.
As reported by 3 News Now, reporter John Stemple interviewed about 10 early voters in Omaha and found the measure was already on some minds without being asked about it directly — two voters brought up Measure 442 on their own. Eight of those interviewed instead pointed to the cost of living as their top concern heading into the election, underscoring that the sports measure is competing for attention with more immediate pocketbook worries.
Among those who did raise it, the reactions split along familiar lines. One early voter supporting Measure 442 told 3 News Now the issue mattered because of concerns about transgender students participating on girls' teams and using girls' locker rooms, saying she felt uncomfortable at the thought of her granddaughter sharing a locker room with males while changing. Another supporter argued that biological strength differences between male and female athletes should be upheld in how teams are organized.
Not Everyone Agrees It's the Top Issue
Other voters pushed back on how central the issue should be. One early voter interviewed by 3 News Now said transgender students should be allowed to participate in sports, while another described the whole debate as a distraction, calling it less significant than supporters of the measure portray it to be.
Those divided reactions mirror the scale of the ballot fight itself. The committee backing the measure, Fairness for Girls, reported raising $3.1 million and spending $3.02 million through July 27, according to the Nebraska Examiner. The opposing Fairness for All committee, by contrast, reported raising and spending almost $16,000 against the measure — a lopsided financial mismatch heading into Election Day. The Nebraska Examiner's voter guide identifies Restore the Good Life Inc. as the Fairness for Girls campaign's main donor at $3.1 million, while Nebraska Public Media separately reported that the organization contributed at least $3 million to fund the effort.
What Measure 442 Would Actually Do
If approved, the amendment would apply to athletic teams sponsored by public schools, postsecondary institutions, and certain private schools that compete against public institutions, per the Nebraska Examiner's voter guide. It would require those teams to be designated male, female or coed, and would prohibit teams set aside for females, women or girls from being open to students of the male sex. Notably, the measure would not define the word sex in the Nebraska Constitution, and it would not extend its sex-based definitions to bathrooms in government buildings, including schools, the outlet reported.
Former State Sen. Julie Slama of Dunbar has led the Fairness for Girls campaign, which turned in 211,000 signatures to qualify the measure for the ballot in late June, according to Nebraska Public Media. Earlier this month, the Nebraska Supreme Court unanimously upheld the measure's validity, finding that an initiative's object statement does not need to list every consequence of adoption, the Nebraska Examiner reported.
How the Current Law Already Works
Measure 442 would build on groundwork already laid by state law. Nebraska's 2025 Stand With Women Act already requires K-12 and postsecondary students to compete on teams aligned with their sex as defined by law, according to Dakota News Now. That law prompted the Nebraska School Activities Association to retire its Gender Participation Policy, which had been in place since 2018, before any state law addressed the issue.
Under that now-inactive policy, the NSAA's Gender Participation Committee received eight applications across all sports from 2018 through the end of last school year, the station reported — a small number compared with the roughly 65,000 participants the NSAA says its major sports averaged per year over that same stretch. Omaha.com has reported that the NSAA's gender identity eligibility committee was disbanded after Legislative Bill 89 passed, shifting transgender-participation review responsibility onto individual Nebraska high schools.
The NSAA's current rules for the 2026-27 school year require eligibility submissions to designate each student's sex as defined by state law, with students required to participate consistent with that designation and the sport's own male, female or coed label. The rules do carve out one exception: a female student may participate on a male-designated team if no female team is offered or available for that sport. The association sanctions 24 sports and five performing arts activities covering nearly 100,000 student-activity participants statewide each year, and it retains the ability to make additional participation policy changes when required.
Nebraska voters will settle the question of whether those rules — and the broader framework they represent — belong permanently in the state constitution when they cast ballots on Nov. 3.
