Overview

• A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ordered the Vermont Principals' Association to let Mid Vermont Christian School return to state-sponsored competition on a preliminary basis.
• The court said the league likely violated the Free Exercise Clause by displaying hostility toward the school's religious beliefs and by deviating from its own disciplinary procedures.
• Judges cited public comments by VPA executive director Jay Nichols and described the school's expulsion as unprecedented, overbroad, and procedurally irregular.
• The dispute began after Mid Vermont forfeited a 2023 girls' playoff game rather than face a team with a transgender girl, which the VPA followed by barring the school from all sports and extracurricular activities.
• Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents the school, praised the ruling, while the VPA declined substantive comment and has argued the case concerns actions affecting transgender students; the broader legal fight heads toward Supreme Court review of related state bans in Idaho and West Virginia.