The five-week pause on abortions at Wellspring Health Access will continue for now. 

A judge heard arguments Tuesday on whether to temporarily halt enforcement of new state regulations that forced the Casper clinic to stop providing abortions in late February. But at the hearing’s conclusion, state Judge Thomas Campbell said he would issue a forthcoming written decision rather than ruling from the bench. 

In the meantime, Wellspring will continue to refer patients seeking abortions to out-of-state providers, while continuing to serve patients seeking non-abortion care, its founder said after the hearing.

“We are committed to seeing this through,” Wellspring president Julie Burkhart told reporters.

Burkhart’s attorneys and state lawyers defending the new regulations spent Tuesday afternoon inside a Casper courtroom debating whether Campbell should grant a preliminary injunction that would pause enforcement of the rules while a legal challenge proceeds.

At issue are two laws passed earlier this year by the Wyoming Legislature. One requires abortion clinics to be regulated as ambulatory surgical centers, a designation that brings with it more strenuous rules and restrictions. The second mandates pregnant women undergo ultrasounds and a 48-hour waiting period before receiving abortion medications.

Unnecessary regulations? 

Attorneys representing Burkhart and other abortion advocates maintain the new laws are unconstitutional and nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt at halting abortion altogether after a separate judge blocked Wyoming’s two existing abortion bans in November. They maintain the new laws unfairly target Wellspring and won’t make women seeking abortions any safer.

“At the end of the day, the state has done nothing to show these laws protect women’s health,” said Peter Modlin, one of several attorneys representing the plaintiffs at Tuesday’s hearing. 

Modlin questioned why a clinic that provides abortions should be regulated as an ambulatory surgical center when its procedures don’t involve things like incisions or anesthesia. He noted that lawmakers don’t require the ambulatory surgical center designation for clinics that provide more invasive procedures like vasectomies. 

“On its face, the law doesn’t make sense if its purpose is to protect public health,” he told the court.

Turning to the ultrasound law, Modlin questioned why the new mandate was necessary. If an ultrasound requirement was truly about keeping pregnant women safe, then why only require it for women seeking abortions, he asked. 

The lawyer also cited comments made by Wyoming Speaker of the House Chip Neiman, who has acknowledged that his push to pass new abortion restrictions is focused on ending the practice, rather than merely making it safer.

Whatever Neiman’s intent, the laws he supported have dramatically halted abortion in Wyoming. Wellspring performed 71 abortions between Jan. 1 and Feb. 27, when the new ambulatory surgical center regulations went into effect. In the month that followed, it stopped providing abortions and referred 80 patients seeking them to other providers.

“This law is carefully tailored to put that one clinic out of business,” Modlin said.

Defending the laws

Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, abortion rights advocates in Wyoming have focused on a 2012 amendment to the Wyoming Constitution that protects people’s rights to make their own health care decisions. Lawyers for abortion providers successfully used that amendment to convince a different judge to overturn the abortion bans passed by the Wyoming Legislature in 2023. That case is set to be argued before the Wyoming Supreme Court next week.

On Tuesday, Senior Assistant Attorney General John Woykovsky took aim at those arguments. The state maintains abortion does not qualify as health care in the context of the constitutional amendment. And regardless, that amendment still allows the Wyoming Legislature to enact restrictions related to health care, he said.

“There is no fundamental right to make health care decisions that are unrestricted,” he said.  

Beyond that, Woykovsky noted that Wellspring, while saying the new rules are too onerous, hasn’t provided details about how much it would cost to upgrade the facility to comply with them.

“All we know is Wellspring has stated they are not willing to try,” he said.

What’s next?

Abortion opponents packed one side of the courtroom for the hearing, and as it wound down, Judge Campbell appeared to acknowledge that many in Wyoming were awaiting his ruling. He said he would try to work as quickly as possible to produce a written opinion.

The case took a circuitous route to even get to this point. Before lawyers had a chance to argue the merits, they clashed over where the case should be heard. The plaintiffs first filed their suit on Feb. 28 in Natrona County. But when Natrona County District Judge Dan Forgey did not act on their request for an emergency hearing after 12 days, the plaintiffs refiled the matter in Teton County, where it was assigned to Melissa Owens, the same judge who struck down the 2023 abortion bans.

Attorneys defending the abortion restrictions fought the venue change, saying it amounted to forum shopping. Owens agreed the case belonged in Natrona County and sent it back there. But instead of going back to Forgey, the case was assigned without public explanation to Campbell. 

While the rules remain in effect, Wellspring is providing medical services that don’t involve abortion, including family planning and general gynecological services, Burkhart told reporters after the hearing. She said she didn’t know how long the clinic could continue to operate without its full slate of services. Wellspring has three doctors and seven other clinical staff, and to date, hasn’t laid anyone off.

In the meantime, the clinic has referred patients to facilities in Colorado, Salt Lake City and Montana. If Campbell grants the preliminary injunction, Wellspring would immediately restart its abortion services, Burkhart said. 

“We are a pretty tenacious group of people,” she said. “We are not going to shrink from this.”

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Nearly five weeks ago, lawyers representing Wyoming’s abortion providers sought an emergency court hearing to temporarily halt new restrictions that have effectively shut down Wyoming’s only abortion clinic.

That hearing has finally been set for next week. And when it happens, a new judge will oversee matters — the third jurist assigned to the case since it was first filed Feb. 28.

Documents filed last week in Natrona County District Court show the case is now assigned to a judge who retired from the bench last year: Thomas T.C. Campbell. The documents do not indicate a reason for the change, beyond stating that “good cause exists to assign [the case] to another judge to preside over all further proceedings.”

Before his retirement, Campbell had served as a district court judge in Laramie County. He will take over a case that was twice assigned to Natrona County District Judge Dan Forgey and once to Teton County District Judge Melissa Owens.

Opponents of Wyoming’s two recently passed abortion laws filed suit at the end of February in Natrona County District Court. They asked Forgey to pause enforcement of both laws — one instituted more regulations on clinics and the second mandated ultrasounds and a 48-hour waiting period — while the lawsuit proceeds.

Plaintiffs sought an emergency hearing and temporary restraining order, saying the more onerous regulations that came with requiring abortion clinics to be licensed as ambulatory surgical centers forced the state’s lone facility — Wellspring Health Access in Casper — to stop offering services. In the first five business days after the law went into effect, the clinic said it referred 56 patients to other facilities for abortion-related care.

The plaintiffs say Forgey did not respond to their emergency request in a timely manner, prompting them to refile a nearly identical case in Teton County. While Natrona County is home to Wellspring, patients in Teton County use the clinic’s services, but have been turned away since the new laws went into effect, according to a lawyer for the plaintiffs.

When the case moved to Teton County, it landed before Owens, who had presided over a legal challenge by the same group of plaintiffs to a pair of abortion bans passed by the Wyoming Legislature in 2023. Owens in November ruled those bans violated the state constitution, and that case is now before the Wyoming Supreme Court.

Attorneys for the state, who are tasked with defending the new abortion laws, challenged the move to Teton County, saying it amounted to “forum shopping,” the practice of filing a case with a court that a litigant believes will be more favorable to them. They also said Forgey couldn’t schedule the emergency hearing until he received proof that the defendants had been properly served. 

In a hearing last month, Owens concluded the latest case belongs in Natrona County, where the lone clinic affected by the new laws operates. The plaintiffs quickly refiled the case there, where it was assigned again to Forgey on March 24, court records show. The following day, Wyoming Supreme Court Chief Justice Kate Fox requested the case be assigned to Campbell. That request did not explain the reassignment or why an outside judge was needed. Beside Forgey, three other district judges serve in Natrona County.

A hearing on whether to pause enforcement of the new abortion laws is now set for April 8 at the state courthouse in downtown Casper. Lawyers for the abortion providers say those laws — like the bans passed in 2023 — violate Wyomingites’ constitutional right to make their own health care decisions.

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A group of more than 100 Wyoming lawyers and retired judges this week urged the state’s congressional delegation to condemn escalating attacks on the judicial branch and its independence by President Donald Trump and his allies.

Writing in an open letter delivered Wednesday to the delegation, the legal professionals cited a chorus of criticism and threats against judges and judicial authority that’s crescendoed through the first two months of the Trump administration, as the president has sought to assert more power over the federal government while dramatically remaking federal agencies through cuts and layoffs. 

Specifically, the letter cited Trump’s calls to impeach a judge he deemed a “Radical Left Lunatic,” billionaire Elon Musk’s repeated use of his social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) to attack court rulings he’s called “evil” and “an attempted coup,” and social media users who’ve even called for judges to be beheaded or hanged.

“The judiciary lacks the Executive’s bully pulpit or the Legislature’s power to defend itself. It does not have its own social media platform. Judges are not permitted to publicly discuss their decisions. The Judicial Branch must therefore rely on the other branches of government to respect and defend its constitutional role,” states the letter, which was addressed to Sens. John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis and Rep. Harriet Hageman. “We do not see that happening. 

“As our elected federal representatives— and as required by your own oaths—we thus urge you to publicly condemn these threats, affirm judicial independence, and remind Americans that appeals—not violence, intimidation, or invitations to lawlessness—are the constitutional remedy for undesired court decisions.”

Attacks on the judiciary haven’t been limited to public statements and social media posts, the signees wrote. They noted that some Republicans in the House of Representatives have filed articles of impeachment against federal judges. As of earlier this week, GOP lawmakers had pursued impeachment against six judges who’d ruled against the Trump administration in court, according to a count by Reuters.

Those and other threats, the signers went on to write, are part of an effort not to discredit judges alone, but the rule of law.

“We understand there is an appetite among sizeable members of the electorate for radical change at any cost, but the growing reckless disdain for the independence and security of our judiciary must be resisted by anyone sworn to uphold our Constitution,” the letter reads. “That includes us, and it certainly includes you. Silence in the face of such threats from those with a duty to uphold the Constitution will be properly seen as complicity.”

The letter signees include former Gov. Mike Sullivan; retired Wyoming Supreme Court Chief Justices Marilyn Kite, Michael Golden, Michael Davis and E. James Burke; retired U.S. District Court Chief Judge William Downes and former Wyoming Attorneys General Gay Woodhouse and Patrick Crank. 

The letter signers hope the delegation will be “allies” in upholding the constitutional structure central to the nation’s democracy, retired state district judge Tim Day told WyoFile.

“We really hope that our congressional delegation will do the same, and that they won’t sit on their hands, and they will identify these as dangerous actions and dangerous words.” 

Motivations for signing 

The letter is not political, and it aims to ensure the courts remain independent of political influence, Day said. Undermining the independence of the judiciary, disregarding legal decisions and not defending the separation of powers paves the way for oppression, he warned.

The U.S. Constitution anticipated such threats, he noted. 

“It’s exactly the kind of thing that our founding fathers put in the first three articles of the Constitution because of what happened with the colonies with England,” Day said. “They were oppressed. So they didn’t want that to happen again.

“We’re asking our congressional delegation, two of whom are lawyers, to acknowledge that these are basic foundational tenants in our Constitution, critical to our democracy and the proper functioning of our government, with separation of powers and checks and balances.” 

Sullivan, a lawyer who served two terms as Wyoming’s governor, also hopes the delegation will “recognize the need to step up and respond.” He said his decision to sign the letter reflects “a concern about the administration’s policy on the rule of law and judges and lawyers and matters associated with the rule of law, and I thought it reflected well upon the concerns, and was happy to sign it.”

After Trump called for the impeachment of U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg for issuing an order that sought to halt deportation flights, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued a rare public statement. In it, Roberts stressed that two centuries of precedent have established that “impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.” That proper response, he added, was the normal appellate process.

American governance, as envisioned by the country’s founders, relies on respecting the judiciary as being just as critical to a healthy democracy as the other two branches of government, explained Kite, who served on the Wyoming Supreme Court for 15 years, including four as chief justice.

If you undo the Constitution just to get things done, you no longer have a free and open democratic society, she said. 

“The rule of law isn’t what you want it to be,” Kite said. “It is what is established in the laws, and the laws are interpreted by the courts, and that’s been the case for 250 years.”

When asked about his motivations for signing the letter, Kite’s former colleague on the state’s high court, Michael Golden, recalled his decades practicing law, including four years in the Judge Advocate General’s Office and another 24 on the Wyoming Supreme Court. Golden said he believed strongly in the state and federal constitutions, along with the rule of law, and was alarmed by actions now taking place in Washington.

“If we lose respect [for] our courts, if we lose sight of the rule of law and our Constitution, then that will be what destroys our country,” he told WyoFile. “And that just speaks to the very heart of what we’re concerned about.”

Retired state district judge Peter Arnold was more blunt about his motivations for speaking out — and whether it will influence Wyoming’s congressional delegation.

“I signed the letter about which you contacted me because I strongly disagree that it is proper to speak about judges the way Trump is,” he wrote in an email to WyoFile. “I am not naive, I understand the pressures faced by our legislators and doubt the letter will do much good but I would be remiss if I didn’t express my beliefs publicly to our legislators.

“In my mind, Congress has a constitutional responsibility to publicly disagree with Trump,” wrote Arnold, a Republican who served on the Laramie County GOP General Committee and who was censured by the panel for raising the same issues. “Again, it is naive for me to expect much but to do nothing is not an option.”

Congressional delegation

WyoFile emailed questions about the letter to Barrasso, Lummis and Hageman early Wednesday evening. As of publication time Thursday afternoon, none had responded.

But in previous comments, speeches and letters, the lawmakers gave some insight into their views on the recent attacks on judges. 

On Feb. 10, for example, the delegation held a tele-town hall and were asked about what Republicans could do to stop Democrats and judges from blocking parts of Trump’s agenda.

Hageman, a lawyer herself, accused judges of “clearly acting politically” and suggested the administration expedite appeals or even outright ignore judges.

“When you have a judge who issues the decision saying that the Secretary of the Treasury is not allowed to access the documents of the Treasury, you’ve got a rogue judge,” Hageman said. “And I think that you may see the House moving forward with some ideas of what we’re going to do in that regard.

“One of the things that I think is going to happen, and what this administration needs to do, is really work to expedite the appeals on these absolutely outrageous decisions. It’s another form of lawfare, and it is just another example of how our system was broken with these rogue judges that have been appointed by Obama and Biden especially. They’re gonna have to go through the process. I wish I had a different answer for you. 

“I will tell you one thing that I’d like to consider, if I was the Secretary of Treasury … I might just say, ‘This is my agency. My responsibility is to take care of these records. I absolutely have to have access to them,’ and dare the judge to hold him in contempt. That’s what I might consider.”

Hageman went on to say that such a step — disobeying a judge and daring them to hold a person in contempt — is not something she’d normally recommend. But she went on to suggest there were times when it would be necessary to do just that.

“And I just, I think at some point you got to tell these judges, ‘You really do not have the power that you think that you do. You want to hold me in contempt of court, have at it, baby.’”

More recently, Barrasso took aim at “activist district court judges” in a speech earlier this month from the Senate floor. He accused those judges of “protecting criminals, terrorists and corrupt bureaucrats from the accountability that voters demand.”

“Let me be clear. When partisan, unelected district court judges try to micromanage the president of the United States, it isn’t judicial review,” he said. “It isn’t checks and balances. It is purely partisan politics — and it is wrong. Radical district judges will not succeed in blocking Republicans from getting America back on track.”

Lummis has been publicly supportive of many of Trump’s efforts to downsize the federal government. On Wednesday, Trump endorsed her for reelection.

WyoFile editors Tennessee Watson and Rebecca Huntington, along with writer CJ Baker, contributed to this report. 

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Wyoming’s lone congressional Rep. Harriet Hageman will no longer appear at town halls set for later this week in Cheyenne and Torrington, opting instead for virtual events, she announced Tuesday.

Her office blamed the change on “public events, credible threats to Hageman, and the related national outbursts of politically motivated violence and attempts at intimidation,” according to a statement posted to the congresswoman’s website. 

In response, Wyoming Democrats said Hageman and other conservatives were seeking to distract from widespread frustration with President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s dismantling of some federal agencies. 

“I don’t think she expected the pushback that she received,” Democratic Party Chairman Joe Barbuto said. “In every community of every size that she visited, there were people of all political stripes there to say ‘hey, we’re really concerned.’”

Hageman had scheduled events in Cheyenne on Friday and Torrington on Saturday. Her decision to move them to a virtual format comes six days after a raucous crowd of more than 500 jeered the congresswoman during a tense town hall in Laramie. Though people in the crowd booed and cursed Hageman, no one was asked to leave or escorted out amid a heavy law enforcement presence, a Laramie police officer told WyoFile that night. No arrests were reported.

At one point during the back-and-forth, Hageman told her constituents that “it’s so bizarre to me how obsessed you are with the federal government. You guys are going to have a heart attack if you don’t calm down,” she said. “I’m sorry, you’re hysterical.”

Hageman cites other incidents 

More than 20 law enforcement officers were assigned to a town hall the following night in Wheatland, the statement from Hageman’s office said. “Despite the law enforcement presence, an attendee followed Hageman leaving the venue and initiated a physical confrontation with staff, into which local police were forced to intervene,” the statement reads. 

WyoFile has reached out to the Wheatland Police Department and is awaiting more information on the events described by Hageman. 

“I thank our wonderful law enforcement community for their willingness to support the public and myself while participating in our government process,” Hageman said in a statement. “It has become apparent, however, that the continuation of in-person town halls will be a drain on our local resources due to safety concerns for attendees.”

The congresswoman further alleged that her office received a number of credible threatening calls and emails, which are now the subject of a law enforcement investigation.

The Wyoming Democratic Party “certainly does not condone any kinds of violence or threats or harassment of any kind,” Barbuto said. Both elected officials and their staff in both political parties should be able to operate free from fears for their physical safety, he said.

“But at the same time, we have a fundamental right to protest,” he said. “The idea that protest is the same as chaos and using that to justify cancelling these public events is a disservice.” 

Hageman said she’s held 75 in-person town halls since running for Congress, with events in all 23 of Wyoming’s counties. All but the most recent two were held without incident, she said. 

The move to a virtual format for future events will continue “at least in the short-term,” her office said.

“It’s no secret that I am willing to engage with citizens on any topic, in any place. But I draw the line when organized protestors intentionally create confrontation and chaos, escalating tensions to a point where violence seems inevitable,” Hageman said in a statement.

Lawmakers often host town hall events in their communities during congressional downtime. In a conservative state like Wyoming, those gatherings often draw many supporters of the state’s all-Republican congressional delegation. 

But amid Trump and Musk’s dramatic cuts to federal programs and mass layoffs of government workers, upset constituents have been appearing in growing numbers at town halls across the country to demand answers from lawmakers. Republican leaders in Congress urged members to stop hosting town halls to avoid confrontations with angry constituents going viral. 

History of protests

After the Laramie event, some conservative politicians and pundits, citing the raucous nature of the event in a conservative state, suggested that the protesters weren’t legitimate constituents. But Laramie, one of the few blue-leaning communities in deeply red Wyoming, has a history of civil disobedience for left-leaning causes. During the summer and fall of 2020, for instance, hundreds of people marched through downtown to protest police brutality and the police shooting of local resident Robbie Ramirez.

One of the city’s House representatives, Karlee Provenza, described those making assertions about protesters flocking into town from other places as ignorant to Laramie’s civic nature. 

“Welcome to House District 45,” she said, “where we think a little different than the people who are sent to Washington D.C. on our behalf.”

In Laramie, Provenza continued, “people have continued to show up for things that matter to them. And they are fed up and they’re your constituents. And instead of acknowledging their concerns you [Hageman] were dismissive, so of course they were upset.”

To Provenza, the overarching message of Hageman’s tour through Wyoming, and the pushback she has seen in various towns and cities, is not that the state’s few Democrats are somehow unruly or dangerous. It is instead that certain actions of the Trump administration, and Elon Musk’s DOGE cost-cutting initiative in particular, are upsetting people, she said.

“Quite frankly, I think it’s lazy to say that their anger and suffering is not valid and has no place here,” she said of Hageman’s characterization of the reaction seen on her tour. “That’s what someone says who doesn’t have to work for their vote.” 

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Spend enough time around politicians and government officials, and you will invariably hear them tout the importance of transparency. It makes sense. Government transparency is one of those pleasant bromides that politicians mention because they know voters expect it. It sends the message that your taxes will be well spent, that civic matters will be decided fairly, that government excess will not only be addressed, but exposed for the world to see.

On the surface, that’s all great. We want our politicians to be transparent about their decisions. We want to know how public money is being used, why the government chooses one project over another and who is receiving campaign contributions from shadowy organizations. This is Sunshine Week, a time to recognize the importance of obtaining answers to those and other questions.

But transparency demands more than talk. And when you spend time around politicians, you soon realize that those who tout transparency the most are all too often the ones who fail to live up to that promise. For too many of them, transparency is a buzzword, a political cliche turned cudgel to beat back skepticism from pesky reporters and equally pesky citizens.

Here’s an obvious example. On Feb. 25, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stood before a room full of reporters at a press briefing and declared that the “Trump Administration has already proven to be the most transparent ever.” Eleven days earlier, the administration had begun a mass firing of government workers, affecting an untold number of civil servants in Wyoming. We still don’t know many details.

That’s not for lack of trying. WyoFile reporters have repeatedly contacted various government agencies to learn how many workers were laid off, but officials either ignored those requests, declined to comment or made banal statements about “optimizing government operations.” More than a month later, the “most transparent administration ever” still hasn’t provided basic information about job losses or service impacts.

On a certain level, we’ve grown to expect that our presidents, whether Republican or Democrat, will be less than forthcoming with us. But the failure to deliver on the promise of transparency regularly plays out in our backyards. In fact, it happens so frequently that we sometimes fail to recognize it at all.

On March 6, a winter storm battered Casper. The wind howled and roads iced up. As the snow fell, a student was injured at the Natrona County School District’s downtown bus hub. The district transports roughly 5,000 students daily on its buses, and parents reasonably wanted to know what had occurred. How else to ensure the hub is a safe place for their children?

The following day, Casper police and the school district issued a joint statement informing the public that no one would be cited for the incident. Both agencies indicated they had performed some sort of investigation or review. But what exactly did they review? Was the student hit by a bus or did they fall in the snow? Did the injury result from a systemic failure that can be fixed to prevent a recurrence? We don’t know. The statement didn’t say.

Officials stressed they couldn’t release medical or other identifying information related to the child. And sure, that’s reasonable. Even the most ardent advocate of government transparency won’t argue that a hurt child’s name or medical information should be publicized. But it strains credulity to assert that privacy rules barred police and the school district from answering the most basic of questions: How did a child come to be injured during a snowstorm at the taxpayer-funded school bus hub? Instead, agencies that boast of their commitments to transparency left the public with little choice but to trust that government adequately investigated itself. 

There’s no shortage of similar examples. There was the time the Department of Family Services refused to say whether it was investigating sexual assaults at a juvenile detention facility in Casper, claiming the mere acknowledgement of a government inquiry would somehow risk identifying individual children. Or the fact that state legislators, when passing the law that governs the release of public records in Wyoming, specifically exempted themselves from such oversight.

But recounting these disappointments won’t effect change. True transparency requires us to insist on government openness that extends beyond cliches and platitudes. Our congressional delegation would be more willing to provide answers about government cuts if enough constituents asked questions, and demanded legitimate answers. Our local governments would likely provide adequate information if citizens call them out when they use privacy laws to block the release of information that isn’t actually private. The next time a government official promises transparency, it’s up to all of us to hold them accountable for delivering.

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The University of Wyoming has cut ties with a project that landed it on a list of 45 universities under federal investigation for allegedly engaging in race-exclusionary practices in their graduate programs, the school announced Friday.

The announcement came hours after the U.S. Department of Education said it had launched the investigations “amid allegations that these institutions have violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act …. by partnering with ‘The Ph.D. Project.’” The federal agency described the project as “an organization that purports to provide doctoral students with insights into obtaining a Ph.D. and networking opportunities, but limits eligibility based on the race of participants.” 

The Department of Education launched the investigations a month after it issued a “Dear Colleague” letter giving institutions a two-week deadline to comply with the Trump administration’s interpretation of civil rights law. Since President Donald Trump took office in January, his administration has taken broad steps to eliminate diversity and inclusion efforts from government and public institutions.

“The Department will no longer tolerate the overt and covert racial discrimination that has become widespread in this Nation’s educational institutions,” the letter stated. “The law is clear: treating students differently on the basis of race to achieve nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity is illegal under controlling Supreme Court precedent.”

The university will comply with the investigation and was already looking into the Ph.D Project’s alleged “race-exclusionary” approach, UW spokesperson Chad Baldwin wrote in a statement. 

The university’s College of Business has been a partner in the program “as a way to increase its pipeline of graduate students,” Baldwin wrote. 

When the Wyoming Legislature passed a law prohibiting the university from engaging in “diversity, equity and inclusion” programs, Baldwin wrote that “UW in May 2024 eliminated its Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and began a comprehensive review of university practices to eliminate those that promote differential treatment of individuals or classify people on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity or national origin.”

That review flagged the Ph.D. Project and led UW to discontinue that relationship, Baldwin said. 

Political response

That was deeply disappointing to UW alumna Karlee Provenza, a Democrat who represents Laramie in the Wyoming House. 

“My education at the University of Wyoming was incredible, and I benefited from being around all different kinds of people,” said Provenza, who got her Ph.D in social psychology with an emphasis on psychology and the law.

“They’re creating a boogeyman, and they’re setting up hysteria and manufactured rage to try and take down public education,” Provenza said of the Trump-directed investigation. “So when the government comes to dismantle education, the University of Wyoming shows its colors by saying, ‘okay, that’s fine,’ instead of standing up and saying, ‘We have done a damn good job here, and we’re going to continue to do a good job, and you can rip our education out from our cold, dead hands.’ 

“That’s what leadership would look like. But there’s apparently no leadership at the University of Wyoming.”

Republican state lawmakers have been pushing the university to roll back its diversity initiatives, barring the school from spending state dollars on diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Last year, administrators closed UW’s Office of Multicultural Affairs, which has existed for 30 years, replacing it with the Pokes Center for Community Resources. Officials also closed UW’s DEI office, though some of its programs were moved to other areas of the university.

Lawmakers weren’t convinced that went far enough, and they passed multiple bills during the recently completed session intended to combat DEI programs. Gov. Mark Gordon vetoed one bill that sought to enact restrictions on curriculum requirements at UW and Wyoming’s community colleges while also barring DEI-related activity within government. The governor  said the measure “introduces ill-defined and overly broad restrictions, creates significant legal ambiguities and risks unintended consequences that could negatively impact Wyoming’s higher education institutions and workforce development.” He signed a second measure, House Bill 147, that bars government agencies from participating in DEI programs, the Sheridan Press reported.

“Governor Gordon is pleased that the University is cooperating with the investigation and that it has already taken steps to identify and review its programs that may involve race-exclusionary practices,” the governor’s spokesman Michael Pearlman told WyoFile in a statement Friday. “The Governor is confident that the University will make every effort to ensure full compliance with both federal and state laws, including this year’s House Bill 147 when it goes into effect on July 1.”

Among the other 44 schools being investigated by the Trump administration are Boise State University, the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and Montana State University-Bozeman.

“Students must be assessed according to merit and accomplishment, not prejudged by the color of their skin,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement. “We will not yield on this commitment.”

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Wyoming abortion providers refiled their challenge to the state’s newly enacted clinic and ultrasound regulations on Tuesday in Teton County after a Natrona County court failed to act on a request to hold an emergency hearing on whether to temporarily block the laws.

Court records obtained by WyoFile show the change landed the case in the courtroom of Teton County District Judge Melissa Owens, who sided with the same plaintiffs in November when she struck down two broader state abortion bans. The venue switch means Owens could hear arguments in the legal challenge to Wyoming’s newest abortion restrictions around the same time as the Wyoming Supreme Court considers her ruling against the broader bans.

In a Tuesday court filing, lawyers for Wyoming abortion providers say the inaction in Natrona County District Court left them with no choice but to refile the case elsewhere, as the new regulations have forced Wyoming’s lone full-service abortion clinic to cease providing reproductive health services. 

Abortion providers and advocates filed suit in Natrona County on Feb. 28, the day after the rules went into effect, but the case did not advance. Natrona County is home to Wellspring Health Access, the state’s only facility to provide in-clinic abortions. 

The plaintiffs are asking a judge to halt enforcement of the new laws until the court challenge can be heard.

“Although Plaintiffs requested an emergency hearing on their motion for [a temporary restraining order blocking the law], no such hearing was set,” the providers’ newly filed memorandum states. “Because Plaintiffs and their patients are experiencing ongoing, severe, and irreparable injury — including direct harms to Plaintiffs and their patients in Teton County — Plaintiffs have no choice but to dismiss the Prior Action without prejudice and re-file it in the form of the present lawsuit in the hope of securing a timely hearing.”

New laws, new regulations

At issue are two laws passed by the Wyoming Legislature during the session that concluded last week. The first creates a series of new regulations on abortion clinics in Wyoming by requiring such facilities to be licensed as “ambulatory surgical centers.” Abortion rights advocates say rules that come with such a designation are intended to be onerous and impractical. Supporters of the law maintain the regulations are necessary for the safety of women seeking abortions.

The second law requires abortion patients to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound and a 48-hour waiting period prior to receiving abortion medications. The measure prompted a similar debate over whether it was genuinely intended to increase patient safety or simply serve as an obstacle to discourage abortions. Gov. Mark Gordon vetoed the legislation, saying mandating the procedure was invasive and often medically unnecessary, but lawmakers overrode his decision.

Regardless of the new laws’ intent, they had a dramatic effect on Casper’s Wellspring Health Access. The clinic had performed 71 abortions between the start of the year and Feb. 27, founder and president Julie Burkhart wrote in a court document in support of the motion for a temporary restraining order. Immediately after the passage of the new, more intense set of regulations, the clinic ceased providing reproductive health services, and in the following five days, referred 56 patients to other clinics for abortion-related services, almost all of them out of state.

Meeting the new standards demanded of ambulatory surgical centers would require “substantial and costly renovations and reconstruction,” lawyers for the plaintiff write. A further hurdle, they add, is a new requirement that physicians maintain admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.

“The laws will force Plaintiff Wellspring to shutter its clinic … and compel many Wyomingites seeking abortions to carry pregnancies to term against their will with all the physical, emotional, and financial costs that entails,” the plaintiffs argue. 

Change of venue

The lawyers in the newly filed legal challenge also represented the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the abortion bans passed by lawmakers in 2023. One targets medications; the other is a broader prohibition. That challenge was filed in Teton County, and Owens quickly halted enforcement of the bans with a temporary restraining order. She later ruled they violated the Wyoming Constitution. 

One of the plaintiffs in that case — as well as the newly filed lawsuit — is a doctor who practices in Teton County and has provided abortion services in that community. That didn’t stop abortion opponents from arguing that filing the abortion ban challenge in Teton County — a liberal enclave in a deeply conservative state — amounted to venue shopping, or filing the case in a jurisdiction where plaintiffs are more likely to obtain a favorable ruling.

When Owens blocked a ban on medication abortions in June 2023, for example, the Wyoming Freedom Caucus decried her as an activist judge. “The pro-abortion Left can only win by going forum shopping with judicial activists,” the hard-line group wrote on Twitter at the time.

Those who know Owens told WyoFile in 2023 that she’s motivated by the law, not politics.

“Melissa has the ability to avoid the noise around this case, and I think a lot of other attorneys or judges may not,” Casper attorney Pam Brondos said ahead of Owens’ ruling on the abortion bans. “Melissa will follow the law, and I have no doubt that she’s going to make her decision and not be influenced with what’s happening within the political sphere.”

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Steve Core’s office looks out onto Flaming Gorge Way, the road through Green River that served as the detour following last week’s deadly pileup and fire in the nearby Interstate 80 tunnels.

The tunnels’ closure forced between 15,000 and 18,000 vehicles, many of them semi-trucks, onto Flaming Gorge Way each day for nearly a week, creating an enormous inconvenience for town residents. 

On Thursday, the Wyoming Department of Transportation reopened the eastbound tunnel for the first time since the Feb. 14 disaster, and the change on Flaming Gorge Way was dramatic, said Core, communications administrator for the town of Green River.

“I’m looking out my window now, and I just saw one car go by,” he told WyoFile on Thursday morning. 

The 26-vehicle wreck and fire killed three people and injured another 18. It also caused extensive damage to the westbound Green River Tunnel, charring the concrete lining and destroying lighting and other equipment. 

The Wyoming Department of Transportation closed both the westbound and eastbound tunnels due to the crash and fire. Traffic was temporarily routed through Green River, which was no small thing given the volume of vehicles that travel daily along one of the nation’s key highways.

“When you take the eastbound and westbound traffic on I-80, and you squeeze it through Green River, that is a lot of traffic,” Core said.

The high volume did cause slowdowns, but Core said drivers were largely courteous. It also led to some new potholes, which crews were working to patch on Thursday.

Construction and repairs

Before WYDOT could route head-to-head traffic through the eastbound tunnel, crews had to place 5,000 feet of concrete barriers and install new signs to help drivers navigate the area. The agency also lowered the speed limit through the area from 65 mph to 35 mph.

Traffic was moving smoothly on Thursday morning, said WYDOT District 3 spokeswoman Stephanie Harsha. Based on past construction projects, officials expected more congestion during evening commutes.

“That’s just the nature of construction and that level of traffic count on the interstate,” she said.

The state paid about $224,000 for a contractor to install the concrete barriers and another $33,000 to set up traffic control devices. The money is paid from a state fund for emergencies, and WYDOT will seek federal reimbursement, Harsha said. There is an ongoing monitoring cost of roughly $2,000 a day so that someone can immediately address the situation if a vehicle hits or disrupts the traffic control signs, barrels or devices.

The westbound tunnel isn’t expected to reopen soon. Workers were still evaluating that tunnel to determine whether it was safe for cleanup operations to begin, Harsha explained. The ongoing evaluation includes measuring the air quality inside the structure.

Once the cleanup operation is complete, workers will perform in-depth assessments of the structure.

“Until they can get in there and look at it, we’re really not sure how long we will be running this head-to-head [traffic] through the eastbound tunnel,” she said.

WYDOT planned to have a dedicated employee focused on the tunnel and surrounding area to make sure the highway surface stays clear during storms. Still, Harsha said it was important for drivers to slow down and pay attention as they traveled through the area.

The cause of the crash remains under investigation by both the Wyoming Highway Patrol and the National Transportation Safety Board, which are conducting parallel inquiries.

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Two Wyomingites died in Friday’s massive pileup and fire inside the Green River Tunnel on westbound I-80.

The Wyoming Highway Patrol and Sweetwater County Coroner on Monday released the identities of the three people killed in the disaster, which involved 26 vehicles and caused extensive damage to the tunnel. They are:

• Christopher Johnson, 20, of Rawlins.
• Quentin Romero, 22, of Rawlins.
• Harmanjeet Singh, 30, of Nova Scotia, Canada.

Another 18 people suffered injuries and received treatment at Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County in nearby Rock Springs, the patrol reported. The agency did not disclose further information about injuries.

The crash sparked a fire that burned for hours inside the westbound tunnel, charring the walls and damaging lighting and other electrical equipment. Heavy smoke poured from the tunnel, and falling debris stymied rescue efforts.

The highway patrol and National Transportation Safety Board are now conducting parallel investigations into the cause of the deadly wreck. 

“Due to complexities in this crash, off-scene investigations and crash reconstructions conducted by WHP are expected to take quite some time,” highway patrol Col. Tim Cameron said in a statement. “We appreciate everyone’s patience as we examine all the evidence and work toward developing a crash narrative and cause that is as accurate as possible.”

Views inside

On Monday, the state released drone footage from inside the tunnel taken sometime after the fire subsided. A light from the drone illuminates several burnt-out vehicles, some destroyed beyond recognition. Two semi-trucks can be seen, including one with a buckled trailer. Smoke still rises from some vehicles.

The drone turns toward the ceiling, where damaged and deformed equipment hangs from the top of the tunnel. As the video ends, firefighters with flashlights can be seen.

Other videos on social media show what appears to be the moments immediately after the wreck. In one, a trucker kicks out the windshield of a vehicle as people can be heard screaming in the background (viewer discretion advised).

“So this happened coming through a fucking tunnel,” the trucker says. “I’m in a wreck, this is fucking bad. Oh, the truck is on fire. I have to get out of here.”

Authorities have also disclosed that an off-duty highway patrol trooper was involved in the wreck. The trooper was not hurt and attempted to help people evacuate from the tunnel, according to WYDOT.

Partial reopening Thursday

The crash forced the closure of both the eastbound and westbound tunnels, with highway traffic being rerouted through Green River. The tunnels are each about 1,200-feet long and have been in operation since 1966, according to WYDOT.

Engineers performed an assessment of the eastbound tunnel, which was not involved in the wreck or subsequent fire, on Friday night. They found no anomalies, WYDOT Bridge Inspector Randy Ringstmeyer said at a Saturday press conference in Green River.

The agency plans to use the eastbound tunnel for both directions of traffic until repairs can be performed on the westbound structure. As of Monday afternoon, contractor DeBernardi Construction has placed about 3,000 feet of barriers to guide traffic, with another 2,000 feet expected to be completed by day’s end. WYDOT now expects to send two-way traffic through the eastbound tunnel starting Thursday.

Even with that fix, there will be delays. Normally, the tunnel’s speed limit is 65, but will be set at 35 mph for head-to-head traffic. Certain oversized vehicles will be restricted from using the tunnel.

Meanwhile, WYDOT is seeking contractors to clean debris from the westbound tunnel, which it called the “first step in the long process” of repairing it. State engineers found no issues with the integrity of the rock surrounding the tunnel, but the concrete lining was damaged by the disaster and must now be examined for any safety issues, Ringstmeyer told reporters.

“It is imperative that folks stay away from the westbound tunnel for their safety,” Cameron said in a statement. “Between the debris that could still fall and serious concerns about the air quality in the tunnel, it’s too dangerous for anyone without proper protective equipment and training to be in the area. We do not want to add any more injuries as a result of this horrible event.”

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Authorities have confirmed a third person died in the massive wreck and fire that ignited Friday in the Green River Tunnel on Interstate 80.

News of the third death came as authorities worked to clear destroyed vehicles from the charred and damaged westbound tunnel. The Wyoming Highway Patrol now believes the crash involved 26 vehicles: 16 commercial and 10 passenger. Eight were completely destroyed by the fire, the Wyoming Department of Transportation reported Sunday.

As of Sunday afternoon, Wyoming Highway Patrol had cleared away about half of the vehicles involved in the fire. Four passenger cars and nine commercial vehicles were removed from the crash site on Saturday night, according to WYDOT.

The crash ignited a fire that proved challenging to extinguish due to safety concerns over falling debris including electrical equipment and lighting. The fire prevented emergency responders from performing certain lifesaving measures until conditions improved, Wyoming Highway Patrol Major James Thomas said.

In addition, there were reports of explosions within the structure, possibly from burning transformers hauled by one of the semi-trucks involved in the wreck. 

Long process ahead

Authorities are still investigating the cause of the wreck. The highway patrol is conducting one examination while the National Transportation Safety Board performs its own parallel review.

“It’s really going to be a long process, just because of the level, the magnitude of the incident, and being able to document everything we need to make sure our investigation is thorough and we can get a good understanding of what happened,” Thomas said.

Photographs released Sunday by WYDOT showed the blackened interior of the westbound tunnel, with debris hanging from the ceiling. The remains of multiple burned-out vehicles could be seen. 

Still, “initial investigations show no signs of collapse in the westbound tunnel,” WYDOT Director Darin Westby said Saturday in a statement.

As heavy black smoke poured from the site Friday, authorities shut down both tunnels, along with 108 miles of westbound I-80 from Rawlins to Rock Springs. Eastbound traffic has been temporarily rerouted through Green River, which offers its own challenges due to the aging infrastructure under a road that’s now experiencing a high volume of heavy semi-truck traffic.

WYDOT says its engineers are confident of the eastbound tunnel’s structural integrity. Officials plan to route both directions of traffic through that tunnel by mid-week. 

Structural assessment

Speaking at a press conference on Saturday, WYDOT Bridge Inspector Randy Ringstmeyer said engineers performed an assessment of the eastbound tunnel on Friday night and did not find any anomalies. They did, however, discover extensive damage in the westbound tunnel, though there were no issues with the integrity of the rock.

“We’re not expecting the mountain to collapse, the tunnel to collapse,” he said. “That’s not going to happen. It’s safe there. The issue is that the inside of the tunnel is lined with concrete, and the fire has damaged some of that tunnel liner. We are actively seeing some loose concrete coming down now, the first responders are having to avoid some of those areas.”

The concrete liner in the tunnel is 1 foot, 3 inches thick. Inside, there are steel ribs. Engineers plan to use hightech tools to look for sagging or other geometrical anomalies.

“Basically, every square foot of that tunnel liner needs to be assessed,” Ringstmeyer said.

In the meantime, the state’s transportation agency said it had contracted with DeBernardi Construction to set up concrete barriers for guiding both eastbound and westbound traffic through the eastbound tunnel rather than detouring traffic through Green River.

Gov. Mark Gordon visited the crash site on Saturday, where he met with local emergency responders and was briefed by the highway patrol and WYDOT engineers. At a press conference, Gordon said he’d been in contact with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem about the deadly crash and had directed all available state resources to support the local effort.  

The governor also took time to recognize local law enforcement, the highway patrol and firefighters who worked the wreck and blaze. 

“This has been an especially hard time for your folks,” he said. “I know the circumstances were really tough and did not allow for as much as everybody wanted to do.”

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