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In 2023, the Vermont Principals’ Association kicked Mid Vermont out of its athletic association because the school forfeited a girls’ basketball game against a girls’ team with a male athlete because playing the game would have violated the school’s religious convictions.
In a victory for religious schools, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled Tuesday, September 9 that Vermont must allow a Christian school back into the state’s athletic association.
Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing Mid Vermont Christian School and one of its families filed a lawsuit against state officials two years ago after they expelled the school and its students from participating in all state-sponsored sports because the school followed its religious beliefs by forfeiting a girls’ basketball game against a male player.
“The government cannot punish religious schools—and the families they serve—by permanently kicking them out of state-sponsored sports simply because the state disagrees with their religious beliefs,” said ADF Senior Counsel and Vice President of U.S. Litigation David Cortman, who argued before the court. “For over two years, state officials have denied Mid Vermont Christian School a public benefit available to all other schools in Vermont just because it stood by the widely held, biblical belief that boys and girls are different. The 2nd Circuit was right to uphold constitutional protections by guaranteeing the school can fully participate while still adhering to its religious beliefs.”
“I never thought I would be in court for simply adhering to my Christian and commonsense belief that boys and girls are different,” said Chris Goodwin, coach of the girls’ basketball team. “At Mid Vermont Christian School, we strive to exemplify biblical truth in and through everything we do. We’re grateful for our legal team at Alliance Defending Freedom who helped us get back in the game. 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.”
“[Mid Vermont Christian and the Goodwins] are likely to succeed in establishing that [state officials] acted with hostility toward Mid Vermont’s religious beliefs,” the court wrote in its opinion in Mid Vermont Christian School v. Saunders. “The VPA’s Executive Director publicly castigated Mid Vermont—and religious schools generally—while the VPA rushed to judgment on whether and how to discipline the school. In upholding the expulsion, the VPA doubled down on that hostility by challenging the legitimacy of the school’s religious beliefs. And as noted above, the punishment imposed was unprecedented, overbroad, and procedurally irregular. Those facts strongly support the inference that Mid Vermont’s religious objection ‘was not considered with the neutrality that the Free Exercise Clause requires.’”
Mid Vermont Christian School is a faith-based pre-K–12 school, located in Quechee, whose religious beliefs drive and form the foundation for everything it does. In 2023, the Vermont Principals’ Association kicked Mid Vermont out of its athletic association because the school forfeited a girls’ basketball game against a girls’ team with a male athlete because playing the game would have violated the school’s religious convictions.
Although the VPA’s general policy is to prohibit boys from playing on girls’ sports teams “to protect opportunities for girl athletes,” it has adopted policies that allow males who identify as female to participate in girls’ sports. The VPA has been demanding that Mid Vermont’s girls’ teams play against teams with male athletes or not play at all and has refused to let Mid Vermont compete unless the school capitulates.
Because of the 2nd Circuit’s ruling, the school will no longer be barred from all VPA athletics simply for forfeiting one basketball game while the case proceeds.
Most of this article was sourced from a September 9 statement published on the Alliance Defending Freedom website.
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Good for them. Now they’ll just need to find a way to maintain their enrollment numbers in the wake of Act 73
YES!! Imagine that!
EQUAL FREEDOM FOR ALL and EQUAL JUSTICE FOR ALL in the Constitutional Republic of the United States of America!!
Let’s HOPE this ruling holds up!!
The state KNEW this would be ruled in the school’s favor from square one, if not on the state level, then it would eventually by the Supreme Court.
This was perpetrated by this atheistic, Marxist state in order to harass and (hopefully) deplete money & resources from the school, and cause injury and scholarship losses to the CHILDREN who could no longer compete in statewide sporting competitions & who forever lost their ability to joyfully & competitively & fairly enjoy the athletic talents that GOD bestowed upon them.
Good going Vermont, as usual – your anti-constitutional and extremist positions and policies that violate moral law, science, and common sense in order to placate your politically insane voters, radicals, and indoctrinated fools & especially the evildoers who fund your party and your personal quest for power.
In the end? GOD wins. NOT you. In the present? You again WASTED taxpayer dollars to appeal to the fringes of the lunacy you embrace.
The students here are the HEROS & HEROINES – who veraciously fought the proverbial “city hall” and WON, and who sacrificed their own hopes & dreams in order that subsequent students across this state may FOREVER FREELY enjoy theirs!!! THANK YOU, STUDENTS of Mid-Vermont CHRISTian Schooll!!!!!!
I doubt the state or VPA knew this would be overruled. I think they really expected this to stand because they really believe the intellectual drivel they spout.
Kathleen, Very insightful comments, along with the other 11 comments.
Thank God this Christian School took a firm counter- cultural stand for TRUTH.
Thank God for Alliance Defending Freedom and their expert lawyers who also know the Truth.
Thank God for VDC and its news.
May the staff and students at Mid-Vermont and ADF know this first step of victory sets a precedent, which will hopefully give others courage to stand for Truth, in midst of persecution and falsehoods. Truth prevailed.
Hooray for Mid Vermont Christian School!
VPA, take back your hate
Now the VPA members should be liable for every dollar lost by any female athlete in Vermont who lost a scholarship or an award to a male.
Now Mid Vermont Christian School should sue for monetary damages for the students who were denied the right to compete and the loss of scholarships they may have earned. The school should also sue for damages to their reputation for the vitriolic and anti-religious rhetoric of the VPA. Finally, the taxpayers of Vermont should insist that the damages be paid out of funds ~not~ provided by taxpayer monies. The VPA has mismanaged a lot of things and really needs to be disbanded.
This just shows the VPA’s continued atheistic, amoral, and indifferent stance on human values…God Bless Vermont Christian’s stand on maintaining their determination to stand for Biblical standards.
Well done! The billable hours defending the VPA’s mind virus hopefully dinged their bank account so much so that dues and fees must be raised. They must dip deeper into the poison well for financial support from their sponsors of societal, cultural rot and decay (such as the Vermont Community Foundation.) Follow their money, find their co-conspirators.
It seems that the members of the VPA need to attend some remedial health classes and learn the fundamental differences between the sexes. It’s not just Vermont’s public school students who are lacking in their academic performance. In days of old, the VPA members would also be deserving of a few good whacks with the hickory stick and spend some quality time sitting in the corner with the dunce cap on.
Headline fixed:
Mid-Vermont Christian triumphs over State of Denial, sports teams must be reinstated
We will need to move farther away from these Transgender ideologies in our schools. They have sexualized our school systems. We need to expunge all remnants of that movement.
government likes to feel it is free to discriminate against anyone they care to. that goes double for those who go against propaganda government is trying to shove down their throat
As a former VPA member now living out of state, I am shocked that the VPA took such extreme punitive action against an entire school ! A team, taking a principled stand, refuses to play a game. In response, the VPA chooses to prohibit EVERY participant in ALL sports for two years? Does the VPA support “whole class punishment” for one child’s mistake? The VPA should come to its senses and settle the case.