Vermont Christian school wins suit after being banned for protesting trans player in girls' basketball

A Christian school in Vermont will receive more than $566,000 in damages and legal fees after reaching a settlement with the state following a lawsuit over its suspension from athletic and academic competitions for refusing to compete against a transgender-identifying student.

Mid Vermont Christian School reached a settlement on Tuesday that will see state educational agencies agree to pay the school and its law firm, Alliance Defending Freedom, more than $566,000 to resolve litigation stemming from a 2023 dispute involving the school’s girls' basketball team. The case began after Mid Vermont Christian School forfeited a girls' basketball playoff game rather than compete against a team that had a biological male on its roster.

"We were all in agreement that the right decision was to not compromise our beliefs and to withdraw, but the conversation with the players was the hardest," the girls’ basketball coach, Chris Goodwin, told Fox News. "Because you play a 20-game season, and you put in the work and the expectation is that you enter the postseason tournament with a shot to see how you're going to do and to see how far you can get. So there were some teary eyes, and some sad faces, but in the end, they all really did understand that it was the right thing to do."

Following the forfeiture, the Vermont Principals’ Association banned the school from all athletic and academic competitions for two years.

"Almost immediately… they came out very strongly," Goodwin explained. "We were going to be banned from all athletic competition in the state… and then on top of that… science fairs and spelling bees."

In response, the school had to arrange competitions with out-of-state schools so students could continue participating in their extracurricular programs. Teams have to travel significantly farther, crossing state lines and returning home late at night, while losing the opportunity to compete against nearby rival schools or contend for state championships.

"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,” Goodwin said.

In 2025, after the school filed suit, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ordered the school temporarily reinstated while litigation continued. Later that year, the appeals court ruled the school must be allowed to participate in state events after the expiration of the two-year ban.

Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Dave Cortman criticized Vermont’s response to the school’s religious objections, noting how strong a stance the state chose to take.

"Their message was, 'in order for you to follow your religious beliefs, boys are boys, girls are girls, that would actually violate their nondiscrimination policies.' So the irony of it was, they were discriminating against religious schools,” Cortman said.