A Christian high school in Vermont has filed a lawsuit against state officials, claiming the school and its students have been banned from participating in the state’s tuition program and sports league due to their religious beliefs.
It lists as defendants Heather Bouchey, the interim secretary of the Vermont Agency of Education; Jennifer Deck Samuelson, the chair of the Vermont State Board of Education; Hartland School Board; Christine Bourne, superintendent of the Windsor Southeast Supervisory Union; Randall Gawel, superintendent of the Orange East Supervisory Union; Waits River Valley School Board; and Jay Nichols, the executive director of the Vermont Principals’ Association (VPA), an association of Vermont schools and school leaders that oversees sports and other activities in Vermont.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit say they are seeking to protect the Christian school and its students and parents from “unconstitutional religious discrimination and hostility.”
This, the plaintiffs said, effectively blacklisted the school from all state-sponsored events in the state in the future, including VPA spring sports for which schools are still creating schedules.
Biological Sex Is ‘Immutable’
“The State is entitled to its own views, but it is not entitled, nor is it constitutional, to force private, religious schools across the state to follow that orthodoxy as a condition to participating in Vermont’s tuition program and the State’s athletic association,” it continues. “But that is exactly what the State has done.”According to the lawsuit, the State of Vermont, through its Agency of Education and the VPA, requires religious schools like Mid Vermont Christian School to follow and affirm compliance with laws, rules, and policies that “prevent those schools from operating consistently with their religious beliefs about sexuality and gender.”
Mid Vermont Christian is a pre-K through 12th grade school located in Quechee whose “religious beliefs drive and form the foundation for everything it does,” lawyers state.
The school’s educational and religious purposes are “inseparable” and its religious beliefs include “biblically based Christian beliefs on marriage, sexuality, and gender,” the lawsuit notes.
“Among other things, those beliefs teach that God uniquely creates each person as either a male or female, one’s sex is determined at creation and based on biology, and that sex is immutable,” ADF wrote.
“Seeking to banish such ‘unorthodox beliefs,’ the State denied Mid Vermont Christian from participating in two generally available public programs because of the school’s religious beliefs, character, and exercise,” the group continues.
According to the lawsuit, the school is also being prevented by the VPA from participating in nonathletic events, such as academic competitions, because the school believes biological “boys are boys and cannot affirm otherwise.”
Additionally, the lawsuit contends that Vermont officials are denying Mid Vermont Christian School and its students from participating in the state’s tuition program, known as the “Town Tuitioning Program” due to their religious beliefs.
‘State Officials Trampling’ on Rights
Plaintiffs say Vermont’s Agency of Education has refused to designate Mid Vermont Christian as an “approved independent” school because of its religious beliefs, meaning it cannot participate in the tuition payments program.The Christian school says it and its students are being “irreparably harmed” by being denied participation in the sporting events and the Town Tuitioning program.
They are seeking a preliminary and permanent injunction against the bans to allow the school and its students to resume participating in VPA sports and activities, and a ban on the VPA enforcing its “gender identity policies against the constitutionally protected activities of Plaintiffs,” among other things.
They also ask the court to declare that the VPA’s gender identity policies as applied to the school violate their free speech, religious autonomy, expressive association, and fundamental parental rights, under the First and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
Additionally, the school is seeking nominal and compensatory damages.
“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, in a statement.
“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,” he added.
A spokesperson for the Vermont Principals’ Association told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement that Mid-Vermont Christian School “has every right to teach its beliefs to its own students” but cannot, however, “impose those beliefs on students from other public and private schools; deny students from other schools the opportunity to play; or hurt students from other schools because of who those students are.”
“The VPA will continue to follow Vermont law, will defend its policies and actions in court, and will therefore limit its comment to this statement,” the spokesperson added.
The Epoch Times has contacted the Windsor Southeast Supervisory Union for comment.
