School boards in Vermont “agreed to pay over half a million dollars to a Christian school they had banned from interscholastic athletic and academic competitions after it forfeited a girls’ basketball game against a team with a biological male player,” reports The College Fix.
That 2023 forfeit by Mid Vermont Christian School was in response to “recently adopted policies” by the Vermont Principals’ Association that let students join sports teams based on their “gender identity.”
After the forfeit, the principals association banned Mid Vermont Christian from competing against other schools in Vermont, and extended the ban to “co-ed academic competitions like the Geo-Bee, Science and Math Fair, and Debate and Forensics League.”
The Vermont Agency of Education then excluded the Christian school from participating in the state tuition program.
Represented by ADF attorneys, the Christian school sued three years ago, but a federal district judge denied the plaintiffs “injunctive relief” in June 2024.
The plaintiffs appealed to the federal appeals court in New York City, which after a few months ruled Mid Vermont Christian’s teams must be allowed to compete again, and remanded the case back to district judge for “further proceedings.” The appeals court wrote
Where a state actor’s “hostility was inconsistent with the First Amendment’s guarantee that our laws be applied in a manner that is neutral toward religion” […] our job is clear. We thus conclude, without engaging in strict scrutiny, that Plaintiffs have made a strong showing that the VPA violated “the minimum requirement of neutrality” to religion.
The College Fix notes that
The defendants, including VPA Executive Director Jay Nichols, opted to partially settle for $566,000 in damages and legal fees this past Tuesday. The ADF noted in a press release that its lawyers are still litigating the exclusion of Mid Vermont Christian and other religious schools from the state tuition program.
In its original suit, ADF attorneys pointed to the case Carson v. Makin, which notes a “State need not subsidize private education […] but once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.”
The basketball coach at the Christian school, Chris Goodwin, said “I never thought I would be in court for simply adhering to my Christian and commonsense belief that boys and girls are different. As a coach, I always want my team to play in fair and safe competitions. As a dad, I want my daughter to know that she should always stand up for her beliefs and should never be punished for that decision.”
