QUECHEE — The Vermont Principals Association has settled part of a lawsuit brought by Mid Vermont Christian School after the school forfeited a 2023 girls basketball game against a team that included a transgender athlete.
Under terms of the partial settlement, which neither side would fully disclose, the VPA has agreed to pay $566,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees. The settlement was announced April 29 by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Chicago-based nonprofit that calls itself “the world’s largest Christian legal ministry.”
Both the VPA and Mid Vermont Christian School declined interview requests and to reveal the terms of the settlement.
“Our lawyer has advised us to not comment on that topic other than to say that we will continue to follow Vermont law and advocate for all Vermont children,” Jay Nichols, senior executive director of the VPA, said in an email.
“The VPA agreed to resolve this matter based primarily on the costs and burdens imposed by ongoing litigation,” Steven Zakrzewski, the Hartford, Conn.-based lawyer assigned to represent the VPA by the association’s insurance company, said in a written statement.
“The VPA denies any wrongdoing, and notes that it prevailed in the injunction hearing held in the United States District Court for the District of Vermont. That decision was then overturned by the Second Circuit, and the parties agreed to resolve the case before engaging in further substantive proceedings in the District Court.”
Mid Vermont referred questions to ADF. An email to ADF was not returned by deadline.
“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,” David Cortman, senior counsel with ADF, said in a news release about the settlement.
“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,” Chris Goodwin, the MVCS girls basketball coach and a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said in the news release.
The court action stems from a February 2023 girls basketball playoff game against the private, Dorset, Vt.-based Long Trail School that Mid Vermont Christian School forfeited because the Long Trail team included a transgender player.
At the time, Head of School Vicky Fogg told the Valley News that “a biological male jeopardizes the fairness of the game and the safety of the players,” and that allowing “biological males to participate in women’s sports sets a bad precedent for the future of women’s sports in general.”
The Vermont Principals Association, which oversees interscholastic sports in the state, barred Mid Vermont from participating in athletics, on the grounds that the forfeit ran afoul of the VPA’s nondiscrimination policies.
Mid Vermont and several parents and students filed suit in U.S. District Court in Vermont, contending that their right to freely exercise their religious beliefs had been infringed. In addition to the VPA, the lawsuit named state and local education officials, but the local officials have been dropped from the suit.
The defendants prevailed in District Court, but the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the school’s favor last September, saying that the VPA’s ban was overly broad and evinced hostility toward religious schools. That decision allowed MVCS back into competitive sports in Vermont.
The school fielded girls and boys basketball teams this year, according to the VPA website. The girls lost in a state semifinal to Richford, 39-27. The school offers a handful of sports, and fields teams only when there’s sufficient interest.
The appeals court decision cited legislative testimony from Nichols that ” ‘two religious schools have refused … to sign an assurance that they would follow State Board (of Education) rules regarding non-discrimination,’ noting that, ‘it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that these schools and their far right supporters are gearing up for another lawsuit.’ “
After the appeals court decision, the case was sent back to district court where Mid Vermont and the ADF filed a motion in October dramatically expanding the issues they want the court to address.
The new challenge contests a provision of Act 73, a sweeping education law the state Legislature passed last year, that cuts off the flow of public tuition funding to religious schools. Vermont pays tuition for students in school districts that don’t operate schools, most of them for high school, including many in the Upper Valley.
In its 2022 ruling in Carson v. Makin, the U.S. Supreme Court said that 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.”
While Act 73 limited the number of private schools that can receive public funding, it did not end the practice.
The state Agency of Education does not comment on pending litigation and could offer no comment on the VPA settlement, Toren Ballard, an AOE spokesperson, said via email.
