Education agencies in Vermont have paid more than half a million dollars in damages and legal fees to a Christian school in the state that was barred from competition after it refused to play a basketball team with a transgender student-athlete, Fox News reports.
Mid Vermont Christian School took the knee before a game with Long Trail School in 2023, rather than compete against the trans student, and was subsequently banned from Vermont’s school sports league for the forfeiture.
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The religious school sued the league, the Vermont Principals’ Association (VPA), with the help of anti-LGBTQ+ conservative Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom. In September 2025, the New York-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit agreed with the plaintiffs that their “religious freedom” had been violated and overturned an earlier ruling by a federal district judge in Vermont that upheld the league’s action.
The settlement, finalized on Tuesday after mediation, awards $566,000 to Mid Vermont Christian School and the ADF. Neither side has divulged the full terms of the settlement, according to Vermont’s Valley News.
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“The VPA agreed to resolve this matter based primarily on the costs and burdens imposed by ongoing litigation,” said Steven Zakrzewski, an attorney representing the VPA.
“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.”
“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 David Cortman, senior counsel with ADF, in a statement addressing the settlement.
Ahead of their forfeiture, the Christian academy had called on the VPA to bar the trans student athlete from playing, but the league said doing so would violate its nondiscrimination policies and Vermont law. In response, the Christian academy forfeited the game, saying, “Playing against an opponent with a biological male jeopardizes the fairness of the game and the safety of our players.”
Three weeks later, Mid Vermont was expelled from the league and denied participation in sports and other extracurricular activities in the state, including spelling bees and debate competitions.
“This case has nothing to do with beliefs,” a league committee wrote at the time. “It has everything to do with actions and their impact on transgender students.”
The Second Circuit disagreed, writing that testimony from the league’s leader indicated that the state sports body didn’t adjudicate Mid Vermont’s case in a “neutral” manner.
“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,” the court wrote, adding that “the punishment imposed was unprecedented, overbroad, and procedurally irregular.”
While parties in the Vermont case agreed to settle, several others are testing the constitutionality of state laws and school policies governing trans student-athletes’ participation in sports. The Supreme Court heard arguments in January over bans on trans student-athletes enacted in Idaho and West Virginia, currently blocked by lower courts. The states are two among 27 with similar laws banning trans students from participating in school sports.
The Vermont sports league’s director was called out by the Second Circuit judges, Jay Nichols, who disputed their characterization of his organization’s decision to expel Mid Vermont as discriminatory and based on religious animus.
“There’s nobody at the VPA that has any animosity toward any religion,” Nichols, who is himself a Christian, said after the ruling. “None of our officers, none of our members, or anyone employed by the VPA.”
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