(LifeSiteNews) — A federal circuit court has ruled that a Christian high school that refused to have its girls basketball team compete against a team with a gender-confused male player must be allowed back into the state’s athletic association after being banned for more than two years.
Mid Vermont Christian School (MVCS) girls basketball team, “The Eagles,” pulled out of the Vermont Division IV state tournament in February 2023 after learning that their opponents’ team would include a male who was over six feet tall.
As a result, the Vermont Principals’ Association (VPA) kicked MVCS out of its athletic association.
“A VPA official publicly denigrated the school’s religious convictions, calling them ‘blatant discrimination under the guise of religious freedom,’” explained Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) CEO and Chief Counsel Kristen Waggoner on X. “That official ‘publicly castigated Mid Vermont—and religious schools generally—while the VPA rushed to judgment on whether and how to discipline the school.’”
“Today’s ruling stands as a rebuke to Vermont officials’ religious intolerance—and a vindication of Mid Vermont’s courage,” declared Waggoner. “I couldn’t be prouder of their coach and players for standing by their convictions, even under intense national scrutiny.”
MVCS provides a biblically-based education from kindergarten to grade 12. Under Vermont law, gender-confused males are allowed to take part in and compete on female sports teams, with a guidance document put out by the Vermont Agency of Education stating that so-called “transgender and gender nonconforming students are to be provided the same opportunities to participate in physical education as are all other students.”
“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 successfully argued the case 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,” said Cortman. “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,” said the court in its decision. “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.’”
“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,” explains a statement from ADF following the win. “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.”
A paper published by the Journal of Medical Ethics, New Zealand researchers found that “healthy young men [do] not lose significant muscle mass (or power) when their circulating testosterone levels were reduced to (below International Olympic Committee guidelines) for 20 weeks,” and “indirect effects of testosterone” on factors such as bone structure, lung volume, and heart size “will not be altered” by hormone use; therefore, “the advantage to [gender-confused men] afforded by the [International Olympic Committee] guidelines is an intolerable unfairness.”
