Victory before a higher court

By taking a self-imposed loss on the basketball court, Mid-Vermont Christian School set itself up for a more resounding victory before a different—and much higher—court.

That victory, in the long run, will be far more meaningful than any state championship the Eagles could have won.

Mid-Vermont Christian, some may recall, was the school whose girls’ basketball team forfeited a state playoff game in 2023 because its opponent’s roster included a male opponent who identified as female. The Christian school’s motivation wasn’t just about fairness and the safety of its female athletes, though the Eagles did express those concerns. Rather, the school’s objection was explicitly religious: The Eagles believed that if they took the court against a team with a boy who called himself a girl, they would show approval of something the Bible declares sinful—namely, exchanging God’s truth about gender for a lie (Romans 1:25, 32).

“Mid-Vermont teaches that the Word of God is foremost and fundamental,” said Jake Reed, an attorney with the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which represents MVCS. “It instructs everything the school does.

“Further: They hold what has been the biblical belief for thousands of years, which is that God created two sexes, and no matter what you do, you can’t change that. They didn’t want to participate in the view that someone can change their sex.”

Mid-Vermont’s stance landed the school in serious hot water: The Vermont Principals’ Association (VPA) didn’t just penalize the Eagles’ girls’ basketball squad, it expelled Mid-Vermont Christian from its ranks entirely. The ban didn’t just extend to athletics, either, for the expulsion meant that the Christian school couldn’t even participate in non-athletic events such as spelling bees, science fairs, and debate competitions.

Unable to compete within their home state, the Eagles joined the New England Association of Christian Schools so they wouldn’t have to shut down their athletic program entirely. This sometimes meant having to travel across multiple states for games, golf tournaments, or track meets. Even granting that states in the northeastern United States are relatively tiny, the closest member school to Mid-Vermont Christian is in Concord, N.H.—roughly 90 minutes away.

Occasionally, the Eagles had to stay overnight in hotels. That’s no small expense for a school that doesn’t even have 100 students and only boasts six athletic teams for every season. At times, MVCS’ athletes would roll back into town late at night with a full slate of homework still to be done, according to Reed.

“They never should have been put in that position,” the attorney said.

Initially, MVCS attempted to overturn its expulsion from the VPA through administrative channels, with no success: The governing body refused to readmit the Eagles unless they made “a sincere commitment to abide by VPA Policies and Vermont law” concerning transgender athletes and commit to competing against schools with such athletes. This, Mid-Vermont Christian could not do for religious reasons.

The Eagles thus made a federal case out of it—literally. But whereas most athletes and schools have challenged states’ allowance of self-proclaimed “transgender” athletes under either Title IX, the federal statute aimed at ensuring equal opportunities for boys and girls in interscholastic athletics, or the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause, which comes into play whenever states create gender-based classifications, Mid-Vermont Christian took a novel approach. The school challenged the VPA’s actions under the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution’s First Amendment.

After Vermont’s federal district court sided with the VPA, Mid-Vermont Christian took its case up to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which sided with the Eagles last September. The appellate court reversed the district court’s decision, blasting the VPA for expressing unconstitutional hostility toward the school’s religious beliefs concerning gender.

If that language sounds familiar, it’s because the Supreme Court used it to take the Colorado Civil Rights Commission to task for attacking baker Jack Phillips due to his refusal to bake and sell cakes celebrating same-sex marriage. In fact, the Second Circuit relied heavily on Phillips’ precedent-setting case in overturning Mid-Vermont Christian’s expulsion.

It didn’t matter that in expelling this Christian school, the VPA issued the harshest penalty possible. “Any sort of penalty against Mid-Vermont Christian for adhering to its religious beliefs would have prompted the school to take action,” Reed said. “The degree of severity wouldn’t have changed what happened.”

Ultimately, after the Second Circuit remanded the case to the lower court, the VPA settled with Mid-Vermont Christian School in late April, granting the school full readmission and forking over $566,000 to boot. More importantly, as part of the settlement agreement, VPA cannot punish Mid-Vermont Christian for adhering to its beliefs on the courts, fields, golf courses, and tracks of the Green Mountain State. In other words, if the school forfeits a state playoff game because its opponent’s roster includes an athlete who claims to be transgender, the VPA is contractually obligated to accept it and move on.

“This case should serve to remind governments across the country that hold differing views [than Christians] that they cannot act with hostility toward religion,” Reed said. “The First Amendment exists for a reason. Government has no place punishing sincerely held religious beliefs.”