Because of its religious beliefs, state denies Mid Vermont Christian School publicly available funding, opportunity to compete in state-run sports
Press Release from Alliance Defending Freedom
BURLINGTON, Vt. – Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing Mid Vermont Christian School and two families filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against Vermont officials for denying the Christian school and its students from participating in the state’s tuition program and sports league because of their religious beliefs.
Vermont, through its Agency of Education and Vermont Principals’ Association, requires private, religious schools like Mid Vermont Christian to adopt the state’s view on human sexuality and gender—namely, that sex is mutable and biological differences do not matter—as a condition to participate in the state’s tuition program and athletic association. Doing so violates the First Amendment rights of Mid Vermont Christian, its students and families, and other faith-based schools by preventing them from practicing their religious beliefs about sexuality and gender.
“Vermont has an infamous record of discriminating against religious schools and families, whether it be withholding generally available public funding or denying them membership in the state’s sports league because they hold religious beliefs that differ from the state’s preferred views,” said ADF Senior Counsel Ryan Tucker, director of the ADF Center for Christian Ministries. “The state’s unlawful exclusion of Mid Vermont Christian from participating in the tuition program and athletic association is the latest example of state officials trampling on constitutionally protected rights. And egregiously, Vermont continues its blatant discrimination against religious schools despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Carson v. Makin that the government cannot exclude families from public benefits just because they choose religious education for their children.”
Mid Vermont Christian is a faith-based pre-K-12 school located in Quechee whose religious beliefs drive and form the foundation for everything it does. Vermont’s Agency of Education refused to designate Mid Vermont Christian as an approved independent school because of its religious beliefs, which means the school cannot participate in the state’s Town Tuitioning Program. Vermont’s Town Tuitioning Program pays for students residing in school districts that do not operate public high schools to attend an approved private school of the students’ choice. However, the agency’s refusal to grant Mid Vermont Christian approved independent status caused the Windsor Southeast Supervisory Union and Orange East Supervisory Union to recoup tuition payments initially sent to the school.
Additionally, the VPA kicked Mid Vermont Christian out of the state’s athletic association because the school operates its own athletic program consistent with its religious beliefs about sexuality and gender. Although VPA has historically prohibited boys from playing on girls’ sports teams “to protect opportunities for girl athletes,” it recently adopted policies that allow biological males to participate in girls’ sports and is demanding Mid Vermont Christian adhere to those policies, even though they violate the school’s religious beliefs. The VPA refuses to let the school back in unless it capitulates and agrees to force its girls to compete against biological males and to let males on its own girls’ teams.
When the Christian school reluctantly forfeited a girls’ high school basketball game against a team that had a male athlete playing for them, the VPA kicked Mid Vermont Christian out of the association. Now, despite 28 years of prior participation in the league, the school cannot compete in any VPA athletics, effectively blacklisting the school from all state-sponsored events in the state, including VPA spring sports for which schools are still creating schedules. The VPA is going so far as to exclude Mid Vermont Christian and its students from participating in co-ed academic competitions like the Geo-Bee, Science and Math Fair, and Debate and Forensics League, all because the school believes biological differences between boys and girls matter.
“The students who choose to attend Mid Vermont Christian are currently losing out on valuable tuition reimbursement and being excluded from playing competitive sports and participating in academic competitions, including the Goodwin and Slarve children, whom we represent in this case,” said ADF Legal Counsel Jake Reed. “Vermont, through its education agency and sports association, has engaged in unconstitutional discrimination by requiring a Christian school and its students to surrender their religious beliefs and practices in order to receive public funds and compete in sports.”
Vermont continues to discriminate against families who choose to send their children to religious schools even after ADF attorneys favorably settled two lawsuits in December 2022 on behalf of several families and the Diocese of Burlington who sued state officials for discriminating against students and denying them the tuition benefit because they attended religious schools. As part of the settlement in those cases, E.W. v. French and A.H. v. French, Vermont officials agreed to apply the state’s tuition benefit program fairly.
ADF attorneys filed the lawsuit, Mid Vermont Christian School v. Bouchey, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont. Michael Tierney and Gretchen Wade are serving as local counsel in the case.
Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.
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Categories: Education, Press Release, Religion
Plot twist: Transgenderism is a religion.
Yes it is.
Well good! The more the state bans religious freedom and religious schools the more popular they will become. The government run schools have nothing left to offer parents children, and taxpayers. The proof of this is overwhelming. Students in Vermont schools cannot read, write, speak and understand math. Will the leftist voters and taxpayers ever get tired of this lunacy? I doubt it. They will reliably vote for more of it.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Carson v. Makin that the government cannot exclude families from public benefits just because they choose religious education for their children. Why would that surprise anyone that Vermont continues it’s blatant discrimination against religious schools. I mean after all Carson v. Making is only a Supreme Court decision. Doesn’t Vermont government supercede the Supreme Court? But then how many Vermonter’s know or care much about civics, how government works, and the Constitution. Vermont government knows that, and realize most won’t say a word unless the discrimination effects them personally.
The legislature that a majority of Vermont residents ( I hesitate to call them “Vermonters”) vote for also pass gun restrictions that they know full well are unconstitutional…
If the state really believed in equality, equal opportunities, then the state would have a neutral issue on all things religious. The state of Vermont however, wishes to directly impose the progressive left religion on not only Christian schools, but every student and teacher in the state. This demonstrates direct defiance of the US constitution and Bill of Rights. It is time to reign in this tyrannical control of education, otherwise known as indoctrination. In addition to suits such as the one being brought here, pay your property taxes in protest because of this kind of interference from the state.
Sad when a school has to go to court to obtain a ruling that favors the trans mafia.
Sukey, ‘The State’ (i.e., government) doesn’t ‘believe’ in anything. It’s the people who operate within the confines of our government and impose their ‘beliefs’ on the rest of us who do so. Assessing blame on ‘The State’ only reinforces the dystopian and unaccountable behavior of the individual members. It’s better to name names.
The Vermont Agency of Education and State Board of Ed.:
https://education.vermont.gov/sites/aoe/files/documents/edu-sbe-member-list-updated-09-2023.pdf
https://education.vermont.gov/about-us/leadership-team
The Vermont Principal’s Association is, for the most part, nothing more than a ‘cult’ organization steeped in secrecy. Individual membership in the cult is carefully protected.
https://vpaonline.org/about/
And yes, our political representatives (the State legislature, executive branch, and its appointees) are also culpable.
If these people have a common characteristic, it is their penchant for survival at taxpayer expense. They will take everything you have for as long as you allow them to do so. While the negotiation is ongoing, their current practices are blatantly illegal. Do whatever you can to withdraw your support. Call them out by name.
Vote for reasonable people.
It would be nice if it went to trial in front of a jury. Likely just a settlement which means nothing. We will see. I told you all VT was a state full of discriminating state a……s who love to discriminate if you are not one of “them” . Meaning you either do what they say or you are not included. Also known as discriminated against. Same game as always.
Both Rice and Mount Saint Joseph have independent school status and receive tax dollars through school choice. Say what you want, but if a Catholic thinks you’re a bigot, you need to pump the brakes a little
Ah… there it is. If you disagree with a Catholic, ‘pump the brakes a little’. Really?
But what happens if you disagree with a secular, dystopian, public-school monopoly that promotes gender dysphoria, medical tyranny, racism, Marxism, and treats parents as domestic terrorists?
What happened to the second clause in our Constitution’s first amendment concerning religion? You know; the part that says: “, nor prohibit the free exercise thereof”?
Let them eat cake?
Oh Jay, I love it when you mash big words together like they mean something. If you think that the Catholic Church is a bastion of progressivism, the Overton window has pulled you right of reality.
As for the first amendment, no one is prohibiting the school from operating, so your argument doesn’t make sense.
Show me anywhere where it says my tax dollars are required to fund a fundamentalist Christian school. If you went to MSJ where I taught, you might have learned what the 1st Amendment does.
I’m going to post this below but I’m also going to post it here to help Chris, understand:
Article 3. [Freedom in religion; right and duty of religious worship]
That all persons have a natural and unalienable right, to worship Almighty God, according to the dictates of their own consciences and understandings, as in their opinion shall be regulated by the word of God; and that no person ought to, or of right can be compelled to attend any religious worship, or erect or support any place of worship, or maintain any minister, contrary to the dictates of conscience, nor can any person be justly deprived or abridged of any civil right as a citizen, on account of religious sentiments, or peculia[r] mode of religious worship; and that no authority can, or ought to be vested in, or assumed by, any power whatever, that shall in any case interfere with, or in any manner control the rights of conscience, in the free exercise of religious worship. Nevertheless, every sect or denomination of christians ought to observe the sabbath or Lord’s day, and keep up some sort of religious worship, which to them shall seem most agreeable to the revealed will of God
Re: “… no one is prohibiting the school from operating,..”
Well, yes they are. By prohibiting the use of taxpayer dollars to be used at a religious school, the legislature is making the function of those religious schools economically prohibitive to operate. If public funding is Constitutionally available to the parents who choose secular public schools, it must be Constitutionally available to parents who choose alternative schools.
Postscript: I hope these terms are easier for you to read and understand.
“taught” at MSJ – a past/present card carrying member of the NEA? Makes sense now. Carry on!
sadly, a delusional leftist answer…
Chris, show me where it says my tax dollars are required to fund not just the teaching of, but the promotion of Marxist fundamentalism, which is antithetical to our U.S. Constitution, in public schools.
Isn’t this more back ground for the release of education funding to families rather than spending it on institutions? Families will buy what ever schooling services their kids might need thus skipping over this endless kerfuffle over schools. Recognize it as citizen educational resources to be dispensed as families choose.
This is fantastic news! Go MVCS! Thank you very much for standing up for reality, for your rights, and for all of our rights.
State officials play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Taxpayers lose.
Taxpayers actually win because that money isn’t going to schools that teach Jesus rode a dinosaur and hates poor people, you know evangelicalism
Chris has a strange and warped view of true Christianity…wow…”Jesus rode a dinosaur and hates poor people” ? That is soo sad that anyone can manufacture and espouse such a delusion.
https://ncse.ngo/young-earth-creationism
Yankbo, its funny cuz its true.
I’m curious how do the doctors refer to your extra chromosome?
Rather frightening that you claim to have been a teacher…let’s pray that your students weren’t brainwashed by your vanity and rhetoric…
Chris, thanks for piling on more data points to bolster my claim that liberalism constitutes a mental disorder…keep the comments coming…
“Chris”, likely Marina Brown, is the only one here not allowing a Reply. Left fascism.
Article 3. [Freedom in religion; right and duty of religious worship]
That all persons have a natural and unalienable right, to worship Almighty God, according to the dictates of their own consciences and understandings, as in their opinion shall be regulated by the word of God; and that no person ought to, or of right can be compelled to attend any religious worship, or erect or support any place of worship, or maintain any minister, contrary to the dictates of conscience, nor can any person be justly deprived or abridged of any civil right as a citizen, on account of religious sentiments, or peculia[r] mode of religious worship; and that no authority can, or ought to be vested in, or assumed by, any power whatever, that shall in any case interfere with, or in any manner control the rights of conscience, in the free exercise of religious worship. Nevertheless, every sect or denomination of christians ought to observe the sabbath or Lord’s day, and keep up some sort of religious worship, which to them shall seem most agreeable to the revealed will of God
It’s not me that’s doing it, I’d troll you fools all day. “Lefty facism” from Guy’s website, the guy is pure 1st Amendment, too bad you guys don’t understand how it applies to schools
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Please enlighten us as to how it applies to schools differently than anywhere else??
I’m relatively sure that anything that interferes with the monetary valuation of something versus another would stop the free exercise thereof as in advantage would be given.
And you know “how it applies to schools” ? How cruel of you to assert your warped views as if they were the gospel…sadly, you have partaken of the Koolaid…hang in there, Kid, we do pray for you…
“I’d troll you fools all day.” Being you labor 68 hours a week to support the elderly and unemployed, I am super glad you choose to spend your down time trolling us! It is hard to find quality entertainment these days is it not? Carry on, your comments are appreciated and taken with a grain of salt by the mustard seeds.
Typical Vermont politicians pander to the freaks, addicts and criminals but destroy the law abiding normal citizens.
In any other state MVC would have a strong case, in Vermont that doesn’t matter just like your genitalia don’t matter
Should be an easy case to win, and for that matter if a school wants to forfeit it should be able to do so for any reason. The VPA needs to be replaced.
It will be interesting to see how Vermont proves that gender is mutable. Every cell in the human body identifies if the body is male or female. The VPA and The Vermont Agency of Education cannot change this scientific fact. Allowing boys to play on girls teams will ruin girls sports . It is wrong. Males are stronger than females. It is true that Vermont has a long history of discriminating against religious schools. All parents should be given vouchers and allowed to choose which school their child should attend. School choice should be available to all to avoid discrimination.
Our public schools are no longer safe for Vermont children. Vermont schools are encouraging students to deceive their parents. Hopefully, this lawsuit will force the Vermont Agency of Education and the VPA to correct their misguided policies.
“The enemy is already here”. – Dan Bongino
Currently in public schools we are teaching to cherish the Muslim religion. The girls wear headgear and don’t participate in anything extracurricular because they go home quietly and raise the children, clean the house and cook. The boys are disrespectful to female teachers and girls in the school and are not pro LGB. Every bad behavior, regardless of how bad, is “fixed” with a Restorative circle, with no actual consequences. The school promotes transgenderism with posters and events littering the halls and calendars always. We speak nothing of Catholicism but have a “prayer room” dedicated to Allah. We fly the BLM flag even though it’s been shown to be a divisive scam with no real benefit to black lives except for the few running the organization. The anniversary of 9/11 goes unmentioned but “Juneteenth” is now a day off and some kind of big deal. Achievements are secondary to equal outcomes. The central office has MILLIONS of dollars of employees that literally don’t do anything on a daily basis. Taxpayers are clueless to this and the downfall of the system and keep voting “YES” for the kids!….. on school budgets. I would NEVER send my child there. I’m not religious but a private Catholic school is the only place my child would attend in VT these days. Very sad.