Who Counts as a Daughter? The Charter Becomes the Argument
Who Counts as a Daughter? · Breaking News· First published 22 October 2026
In the ten days after the DAR's National Board of Management disbanded the Martha Laird Chapter, two documents said outright what this series has argued since Post 4: in this dispute, the Society's federal charter is the lever. One came from the sponsor of the Senate bill. The other came from the restoration campaign's own lawyers. This post sets them side by side, then catches up on the rest of the news since the Martha Laird post. Claims are documented unless labeled otherwise.
The senator
On October 13, the two senators behind S. 5152 responded publicly to the disbandment. Senator Mike Lee called it "Disgraceful" and said that's why he joined Senator Marsha Blackburn in introducing the DAR Membership Integrity Act.¹ Just after noon, Blackburn wrote that the Society had disbanded the chapter "simply for opposing biological males in membership," and added: "If they reject biological reality, they don't deserve that federal charter."²
Until then, the bills' sponsors had described their purpose as protecting the Society's founding principles. Blackburn's sentence describes the charter differently: as something the Society holds on condition of its membership policy, and could forfeit. As Posts 4 through 7 showed, the charter's own text doesn't support that reading. It has never contained a membership provision, and Congress has reaffirmed the Society's authority over its own rules four times. As written, the bills would amend the charter, not revoke it. Blackburn's statement goes further than her bill does.
The lawyers
On October 20, the restoration campaign released a legal memorandum, dated October 12 and addressed to its executive committee by three lawyers at the firm Holtzman Vogel Baran Torchinsky & Josefiak.³ It answers the analysis by Professor Samuel Bagenstos that the Board circulated to delegates before the June vote. It argues that the DAR qualifies for an exception to the D.C. Human Rights Act, that the First Amendment would protect a women-only definition, that such a definition poses no realistic risk to the Society's tax exemptions, and that the Board's handling of the special-meeting requests supports fiduciary-duty claims under D.C. law.
The most relevant passage in this series concerns Congress. The memo calls amending the charter "the cleanest path" to resolving the Society's exposure under the D.C. Human Rights Act, argues that enactment "would preempt the DCHRA under the Supremacy Clause," and urges members to lobby their representatives. It adds that its analysis applies to "other longstanding women-only historical lineage societies" subject to the same or similar laws.³
Put the two statements together. A week apart, the bill's Senate sponsor and the campaign's own counsel each described the charter as an instrument: one as a privilege that could be withheld, the other as a federal statute that would override a local civil rights law. As Post 4 explained, the charter as it stands does very little. Both statements describe what an amended charter would do.
How the memo reads the Supreme Court
The memo relies on two recent Supreme Court decisions, and in both it reaches past what the Court held.
It describes United States v. Skrmetti (2025) as upholding "biological sex classifications." The Court held something narrower: that Tennessee's law classified by age and medical use, not by sex, and so received only the most deferential review.⁴
It quotes West Virginia v. B.P.J., decided June 30, for the point that admitting biological males "can deter some women and girls who would otherwise participate . . . from doing so," and then applies that to resignations from the DAR. The missing words are "in sports," and the Court goes on to explain its reasons: concern about "serious injury" and "an unfair competition."⁵ The decision was about athletic competition, and it ended by leaving questions of policy to "the people, their elected representatives, and the democratic process."⁵ For a private society, the people who make that decision are its members, and in June they made it.
The campaign isn't alone in reading the case broadly. On July 15, Penny Nance of Concerned Women for America endorsed H.R. 9701, saying the Court had "decided that womanhood belongs to biological women."⁶ What the Court decided is that schools may limit girls' and women's teams by biological sex.⁵
A question for a lawyer
The memo's First Amendment argument rests on Boy Scouts of America v. Dale and on the principle that courts must defer to "an association's present articulation of its expressive identity." The DAR's present articulation, through its Board and the June vote, is inclusive. The memo's conclusion is conditional: if the Society formally adopts a biological definition, it says, enforcement against it would fail.³ That gives the Society a defense should it choose to exclude. It doesn't explain why Congress should make that choice for it, and it doesn't address whether a charter amendment imposing a definition the members rejected would raise its own freedom-of-association problem.
I'm not a lawyer, and I'd welcome hearing from one on that question.
The governance claims, and a possible lawsuit
The memo argues that the President General was required to call the special meeting the chapters requested. The bylaws' wording is mandatory: a special meeting "shall be called" on the written request of thirty or more chapters in at least ten states. They set no deadline, which is why the two sides read the duty so differently.⁷ The memo also says the Board circulated only the Bagenstos analysis while withholding a contrary one it had received, adopted a standing rule against relying on outside legal opinions, and retaliated against supporters of the special meeting with warning letters, disciplinary threats, and removals from appointed positions.³ Those are one side's claims and cannot be verified by any information publicly available through documentation, not personal attestation or sharing of stories about what a friend told them. At least the standing rule can be checked: the bylaws require Congress to print its standing rules in its official program, and delegates may amend them by majority vote.⁷
The memo then sketches a lawsuit to compel a special meeting and to bar retaliation. The bylaws ask members to submit a grievance in writing at least nine months before going to court; the memo reads that rule as grounds for discipline rather than a bar to suing.³ ⁷ Members filed a formal grievance in September.⁸ If a case is filed, it would be the first time this dispute has reached a courtroom.
Two of the memo's factual claims have no public source. It says "thousands of members have already resigned"; the Society has released no count to substantiate that, and the memo gives no source to check. And it reports that the Registrar General called a key point in the Bagenstos analysis "anecdotal"; that exchange hasn't been published.³
Elsewhere
The broadcast. On October 12, Laura McDonald, the campaign's founder and the former Martha Laird chapter's treasurer, appeared on Fox News's The Ingraham Angle. She said that if the DAR "cannot define what a woman is, then the First Amendment means nothing." Ingraham read the Society's statement on the air, then told McDonald it was time to start a new organization of her own: a prominent conservative voice recommending exit rather than legislation.⁹ (Only a one-minute excerpt is posted on official channels; I watched the full segment from a recording.)
The local story. On October 15, the Tyler Morning Telegraph published the first original local reporting, describing members of the 84-year-old Mount Pleasant chapter at a prayer meeting the day after the vote. McDonald told the paper that 236 chapters in 39 states had requested the special meeting and that the group had secured legal representation; the paper reported that the Society did not return its call.¹⁰ Five days later, the campaign released the memo from its lawyers.
Other items.
Notice. A member who supports the chapter wrote publicly that it had received several letters warning of possible discipline and had repeatedly asked which bylaws it was accused of violating.¹¹ (Documented, one side's account.)
The chapter's web page on the Society's site has been removed.¹²
An award. On the day of the disbandment, McDonald and Juliet Williams, a fellow director of the campaign's nonprofit, received the annual "Share the Arrows" award. McDonald's public post the next afternoon credited the choice to "Allie Beth" and described the event's theme as sharing "the arrows fired at each of us when we stand for what is right, beautiful and true."¹³ The Federalist dated the award to the day before;¹² McDonald's own post, published October 11, says "yesterday."
A petition to restore the chapter had 379 signatures as of October 20.¹⁴
Cosponsors. H.R. 9701 had forty-eight as of October 20.¹⁵
Still unknown
What specific conduct the Board relied on; whether formal charges and a hearing preceded the vote; what the Board's minutes will show; whether other chapters face similar action; whether the Society will answer the memo; and whether anyone will sue. The Bagenstos analysis hasn't been published, so the memo's account of it can't yet be checked, and the Society's full statement on the disbandment has been quoted only "in part" by every outlet I've seen.
Notes
Sen. Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee), post on X, 13 October 2026, 10:48 a.m., as reproduced in Forth, "Tuberville, Lee, Blackburn Advance Bills to Bar Men from Women's Sports and DAR Membership," accessed 20 October 2026. Tuberville, Lee, Blackburn Advance Bills to Bar Men from Women’s Sports and DAR Membership | Forth.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn), post on X, 13 October 2026, 12:02 p.m., as reproduced in Forth, "Tuberville, Lee, Blackburn Advance Bills to Bar Men from Women's Sports and DAR Membership," accessed 20 October 2026. Tuberville, Lee, Blackburn Advance Bills to Bar Men from Women’s Sports and DAR Membership | Forth.
Palmer Williams, Brandon Smith, and Andy Wilson, Holtzman Vogel Baran Torchinsky & Josefiak PLLC, to Daughters Advocating for Restoration Executive Committee, memorandum, "Legal Implications of Restricting Daughters of the American Revolution Membership Eligibility to Biological Females," 12 October 2026, released 20 October 2026, Daughters Advocating for Restoration Facebook page.
United States v. Skrmetti, 605 U.S. 495 (2025); see Kate Redburn, "Skrmetti Beyond Scrutiny," Harvard Law Review 139 (2025): 167.
West Virginia v. B.P.J., No. 24-43, 609 U.S. ___ (June 30, 2026), syllabus at 4; slip op. at 17, 26.
Office of Representative Ben Cline, "Rep. Cline Introduces Legislation to Ensure the DAR's Membership Is Limited to Women," press release, 15 July 2026, https://cline.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=2687.
National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, Bylaws of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (2025), art. VIII, sec. 7, p. 22; art. IX, sec. 4, p. 23; art. XIX, sec. 6, p. 42.
Bonnie Morgan Dennis, "I want to inform you that members of DAR from multiple chapters across many states have joined together to file a formal grievance . . . ," Facebook, Daughters Advocating for Restoration group, September 11, 2026, https://www.facebook.com/groups/1659132851538607.
The Ingraham Angle, Fox News Channel, 12 October 2026, segment beginning approx. 7:47 p.m. ET; viewed by the author from a private recording. A one-minute excerpt was posted on the Laura Ingraham Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/share/v/14nSiynwpJK/.
Jordan Green, "East Texas Chapter of DAR Disbanded over Calls for Female-Only Membership," Tyler Morning Telegraph, 15 October 2026, https://tylerpaper.com/2026/10/15/east-texas-chapter-of-dar-disbanded-over-calls-for-female-only-membership/.
Trish Riley Mancini, "Part 1: When Did Following the Bylaws Become Grounds for Disbanding a DAR Chapter?," Facebook, 18 October 2026. https://www.facebook.com/trish.r.mancini.
Jordan Boyd, "Being Male Won't Get You Kicked Out of the DAR, but Defending Women Will," The Federalist, 14 October 2026, https://thefederalist.com/2026/10/14/being-male-wont-get-you-kicked-out-of-the-dar-but-defending-women-will/.
Laura McDonald, "Yesterday Allie Beth chose us to receive the annual Share the Arrows Award . . . ," Facebook, Daughters Advocating for Restoration group, 11 October 2026, 1:07 p.m., https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1MA6fAuPYP/.
"Restore the Martha Laird Chapter of the NSDAR," Change.org, accessed 20 October 2026, https://www.change.org/p/restore-the-martha-laird-chapter-of-the-nsdar.
"Cosponsors: H.R. 9701, Daughters of the American Revolution Membership Integrity Act," 119th Cong. (2025–2026), Congress.gov, https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/9701/cosponsors.
