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FIRST ON FOX: State education agencies in Vermont have paid $566,000 in damages and legal fees to a Christian school that was banned from all athletic and academic competition for two years after its girls basketball team refused to compete against a trans athlete in 2023.
A judge’s ruling was finalized Tuesday, awarding the plaintiffs, including Mid Vermont Christian School and its law firm Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), $566,000. The claimants took legal action to challenge the ban in November 2023 and have now officially been handed over their winnings.
Pakinomist Digital reached out to the Vermont Principals’ Association and the Vermont State Board of Education for a response.
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The settlement comes after a yearlong saga in which all of the school’s sports teams, and even its academic teams, such as spelling bees and math teams, had to travel out of state to compete against other schools.
The conflict dates back to an afternoon early in the 2023 school year at Mid Vermont Christian, when the school decided to forgo a postseason girls basketball game against a team with a trans athlete.
Their Christian faith was more important to them than a game. But it was still a tough call and it brought some tears.
“We all agreed that the right decision was not to compromise our convictions and withdraw, but the conversation with the players was the most difficult,” Mid Vermont Christian basketball coach Chris Goodwin told Pakinomist Digital.
“Because you play a 20-game season and you put in the work and the expectation is that you go into the postseason tournament with a shot to see how you’re going to do and to see how far you can go. So there were some tears in the eyes and some sad faces, but at the end of the day they all really understood that it was the right thing to do.”
But it was becoming much more difficult not just for the team, but for the entire school of about 111 students.
Within days of the forfeit, they found that the consequences escalated far beyond a single game. The Vermont Principals’ Association banned the school, not only from basketball, but from all athletics and a number of academic competitions.
“Almost immediately … they came out very strong,” Goodwin said. “We would be barred from all athletic competition in the state … and then on top of that … science fairs and spelling bees.”
What followed was not a single lost season, but years of dislocation. The school was forced to arrange competitions with out-of-state schools just to ensure that their extracurricular programs could continue.
Instead of short bus rides to nearby schools, teams traveled for hours across state lines. Well-known rivalries disappeared. Home gyms sat more quietly.
“The journey is probably threefold,” Goodwin said. “You come back at 10 at night… kids trying to do homework. I wouldn’t say it’s a nightmare, but it was difficult.”
Along the way, Goodwin said there were teams he coached that had the potential to win the state championship but never got the chance.
“You know, the hard part was we knew we had lost … we lost a couple of years of participation. And we had some really good teams in those two years where we would have been, if not winning the state championship, competing for the state championship.”
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Goodwin says it affected the entire culture of the school.
“It’s a big part of the culture … to have games in your gym where parents and community members come,” he said. “It just disappeared.”
When the school took the case to court, the state and its agencies did not agree.
ADF Senior Counsel Dave Cortman told Pakinomist Digital he was shocked by how adamant Vermont education officials would not back down from their sweeping sanction against the small Christian school.
“It’s been surprising how much the state has dug in their heels,” he said. “The arguments they have made… even saying your beliefs are wrong…
“Their message was, ‘for you to follow your religious beliefs, boys are boys, girls are girls, that would actually violate their non-discrimination policy’. So the irony of that was that they were discriminating against religious schools.”
The Mid Vermont Christian School girls basketball team plays following the school’s reinstatement as a Vermont state sport following a February 2024 U.S. Court of Appeals ruling. (Alliance Defending Freedom)
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The turning point came in 2025, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ordered the school reinstated while the case continued — a decision that opened the door for students to return to the competition.
The appeals court ruled in September 2025 that Mid Vermont Christian must be allowed to participate in state athletics after a two-year ban had passed. The court then sent the case back to the High Court for further consideration.
So Goodwin was able to lead his team back on the field this season.
A bittersweet moment occurred as Mid Vermont Christian made it back to the state tournament and back to Barre Auditorium. It’s the state’s old arena that every Vermont player dreams of stepping into for a chance to win a championship.
“When we won our quarterfinal game to get there, our senior captain, who graduated a year ago, was on the phone with her sister, who plays for me now, they’re both crying on the phone, number one because of the joy of accomplishing a goal that they wanted to accomplish, but also the sadness of her sister, who’s a freshman in college now,” said Goodwin, who doesn’t have that opportunity.
Mid Vermont Christian School’s girls basketball team was reinstated to Vermont State Sports following a court order by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in June 2024. (Alliance Defending Freedom)
“It’s the hardest part to see the grief that these girls have to experience. Because the state decided to make the decision, it was hurtful and it’s bittersweet that we’re back, but we’re glad we’re back.”
For the school and ADF, the satisfaction of their victory in court goes beyond just the playing arena as the movement to “save girls’ sports” grows nationally.
Cortman recalled a moment during the case.
“In one of the hearings before the court, the state argued that the school was on the wrong side of history,” Cortman said.
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“The school is on the right side of history and will be for following his faith in its faith, for doing the right thing… sometimes there’s a price to pay. But it’s always the right thing to do. You’re always on the right side of history when you stand up for the truth.”
