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Court: Vermont Principals’ Association ‘violated ‘the minimum requirement of neutrality’ to religion’
In a partial settlement, education officials 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.
According to the Alliance Defending Freedom, that 2023 forfeit by Mid Vermont Christian School occurred around the time of “recently adopted policies” by the Vermont Principals’ Association which allowed students to participate on sports teams based on their “gender identity.”
The VPA subsequently barred Mid Vermont Christian from competing against other schools in the state, 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 followed by excluding the school from participating in the state tuition program.
Represented by ADF attorneys, the school sued in late 2023 but a federal district court denied the plaintiffs “injunctive relief” the following June.
The plaintiffs appealed to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which after a few months ruled Mid Vermont Christian’s teams must be allowed to compete again, and remanded the case back to district court for “further proceedings.” The 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 defendants, which included 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.”
Mid Vermont Christian girls’ basketball coach 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.”
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