A Vermont Christian school has won a big settlement two years after it was banned from all sports and academic competitions. The trouble began in February 2023 when Mid Vermont Christian forfeited a girls’ basketball game against a girls’ team with a biological male that identified as female. The forfeit knocked Mid Vermont Christian out of the state tournament. The school was then suspended by the Vermont Principals’ Association (VPA), which requires schools like Mid Vermont to adopt Vermont’s policy on gender and sexuality. The VPA then sought to have the school permanently expelled from all academic and sport competitions. The VPA continued to deny the school’s request to rejoin the competitions until the school was willing to apply to state gender policies.

The school hired the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) in November 2023, which filed a lawsuit against the VPA, stating it was violating the school’s First Amendment Rights. “We believe that God created boys and girls differently, and as an extension of that there are physical differences as they grow into adulthood,” the school’s basketball coach, Chris Goodwin, told NTD Television. “There’s a large advantage for male athletes, and we recognize that there’s going to be competition that ends up being unfair and unsafe for our girls.”

By 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ordered the school to be reinstated as the case continued. This meant students could again compete in local activities after two years of lost opportunities. “You know, the hard part was that we knew we had lost… we lost a couple years of participation. And we had some really good teams during those two years where we would have been, if not winning the state championship, competing for the state championship,” Coach Goodwin said of the lost time.

The VPA has now settled with the school, agreeing to pay $566,000 in attorney fees and damages. Under the settlement, while Vermont will continue to allow transgender students to play in public schools, Mid Vermont will be protected from disqualifications from state tournaments should it refuse to play against a team with a trans player. Representatives for the school have described their surprise at how aggressively the VPA pushed against the school, going so far as to claim the school was “on the wrong side of history.” “What matters here for mid Vermont Christian and for Christian schools across the country is that if the government disagrees with a Christian school’s beliefs, it can’t retaliate,” said ADF attorney Jacob Reed. “The school and its teams cannot be punished for adhering to and following its religious convictions. If they have a game against a girls’ team with a male athlete, they would be able to forfeit that game without penalty.”