Parents sue school district for banning silent protests against transgender sports policy at games

Fifty-five years ago, the Supreme Court upheld students’ First Amendment rights by prohibiting public schools from suppressing their non-disruptive expression, in this case black armbands opposing the Vietnam War.

The problem was probably resolved in 1969. Tinker However, precedent continues to seep into the courts, as school districts crack down on the same form of passive expression, but applied to a controversial new issue: gender identity versus sex-based rights.

Parents and a grandparent who silently protested men’s eligibility for women’s soccer, wearing pink bracelets with the letters “XX” in reference to the female chromosome pair, have sued a New Hampshire district , officials and even a football referee, saying it was retaliation for their speech. including a ban on walking on any school property.

The defendants did not respond Just the news requests.

Kyle Fellers, his former father-in-law Eldon Rash, and Anthony and Nicole Foote are seeking an injunction against a district politics and athletics manual applied to their wristbands and signs and any other “non-disruptive expression of political views “based on public backlash or heckler’s veto,” and against restraining orders for Fellers and Anthony Foote.

The Institute for Free Speech (IFS), whose retaliation suit on behalf of a conservative professor was dismissed last week for lack of legal merit but was appealed, represents them.

Their actions at the game followed shortly after a federal court ruling that blocked the Granite State from enforcing a law (HB 1205) that “prohibits biological males from participating in women’s athletics,” but which only applied to the two male athletes who filed a lawsuit over the match. right to “practice, train, compete and play on” girls’ teams, not all men who identify as girls.

Judge Landya McCafferty, President Obama’s nominee, cited precedent from the 1st U.S. Court of Appeals interpreting the Supreme Court’s ruling on transgender employment discrimination under Title VII Boston while also applying to the Title IX educational context. The high court has previously said it would not “prejudge” whether the precedent would apply to other provisions of the Civil Rights Act.

The Biden administration’s Title IX regulation, which reinterprets sex discrimination law as protecting and prioritizing gender identity over sex, is blocked in more than half of states and hundreds of states. other school districts and colleges in other states under court injunctions that rejected the federal government’s argument. that Boston applies to Title IX.

The 5th and 6th Circuits upheld two of those injunctions this summer, although President Biden’s nominees on both three-judge panels would have let the non-gender identity provisions in the Title IX regulations take effect.

Advocates for women’s sports received more good news last week, when a federal judge issued an injunction blocking the University of New Mexico from enforcing a security fee policy based on a point of view against the hosts of an event with former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines. , who talked nearly a year ago about competing with transgender record-setter Lia Thomas.

UNM initially requested more than $10,000 from its Turning Point USA chapter and the Leadership Institute, where Gaines runs an eponymous center, to pay 33 police officers. He then charged them half that amount, but both organizations sued rather than pay, asking the court to stop feared retaliation, including losing their charter and being banned from holding events. events on campus.

“The court clearly sees the double standard” of the university “allowing a drag show to take place on campus without any security costs,” said Jonathan Gonzales, co-president of the TPUSA chapter, in a press release plaintiffs’ attorneys from the Southeast. Legal Foundation.

The 1st Circuit interpreted strictly Tinker when he ruled this summer for Middleborough Public Schools in Massachusetts, which banned student Liam Morrison from wearing shirts stating that there were “only two genders” — and after his first punishment, “censored genres” – which was his response to the district’s pro-LGBTQ posts.

Monday’s IFS trial is similar but applies to non-students. It names as defendants Superintendent Marcy Kelley, New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association football referee Steve Rossetti, the Bow School District, Bow High School Principal Matt Fisk and athletic director Michael Desilets, as well as Lt. Phillip Lamy of the Bow Police Department.

They treated the district as a “First Amendment free zone, from which they can ban parents who speak in ways the government does not like,” the suit claims, citing a district policy requiring “respect mutual, courtesy and orderly conduct among all individuals at the school. property or during a school event” and sports policy against “(un)amable sportsmanship… in the stands”.

After Judge McCafferty blocked the state law, Desilets told Nicole Foote that he could not stop men from playing soccer games against girls like his daughter, despite his protests about “the competitive injustice and risk of injury to female athletes, lawsuit says.”

Desilets sent an email to football families the day before the September 17 game, reminding them that the NHIAA prohibits “inappropriate signs, references (and) language” but assuring them of “differing opinions regarding tomorrow’s game… It’s perfectly fine.”

Fellers and Foote’s husband purchased blank pink wristbands “that athletes often wear to raise awareness about breast cancer” and wrote black Pride flags and “messages about global warming” that spectators often wear for extracurricular activities, the suit says.

They handed out the bracelets “to about half a dozen other spectators who asked for one” and everyone put them on in the second half, and Andy Foote “put a Riley Gaines sign on the car’s windshield.” his Jeep” during halftime.

Andy Foote acquiesced when Desilets told him to remove the bracelet as a forbidden “protest”, but Fellers refused, prompting Principal Fisk and Lieutenant Lamy to issue him an ultimatum. Lamy falsely claimed they were on private property and were wearing a body camera, “which should have recorded” what the suit calls “heated words” between them.

Grandpa Rash “observed some of the commotion”, took the bracelet from Fellers and put it on his own wrist, prompting Fisk and Desilets to give him the ultimatum, which Andy Foote filmed part, then Rash left for his car and stayed there, the lawsuit alleges.

Referee Rosetti got involved at this point, sending the teams back to their benches and ordering spectators to remove wristbands and stop “arguing” about the “First Amendment thing”, otherwise Bow High School would lose the game and lose its playoff eligibility.

From the parking lot, Fellers held up the inscription “Protect Women’s Sports for Women Athletes” that was on the windshield of his car during the game, no different from “bumper stickers (sic ) and political and social messages” that he saw on cars at school. property.

Rossetti called him a “fucking a**hole” and Lamy ordered him off school property despite the fact that Fellers “still had to pick up his kids and his sister” who were at the game.

The next day, Superintendent Kelley informed the community of the “form of protest” that interrupted the game for 10 to 15 minutes, in violation of “our policy of public conduct regarding school property” that Desilets had made. allusion in his pre-match message.

She sent Andy Foote a restraining order applicable to all school grounds and any “sporting or extracurricular events” on or off the field, which could potentially be extended through the season, claiming he had led a protest “designed for and having the effect of intimidating, threatening, harassing and discouraging” a student from the opposing team. (The suit does not specify whether this player was a man.)

Fellers received the same basic order, then two “addendum” notices listing the exceptions, not including “games, athletic practices (and) extracurricular activities,” but specifically prohibiting pick-up and drop-off for high school football and “implicitly” for cross-country events. .

The Footes again wore the pink wristbands at a September 24 game, after the trespass order expired, under their “long-sleeved shirts”, while members of Moms for Liberty wore them openly without interruption, the suit says.

Fellers had to ask other people to “transport his children to and from” school and extracurricular activities under his ban, and was unable to attend the homecoming game to watch his daughter play.

The defendants are chilling the plaintiffs’ expression by threatening them with further bans during the fall sports season, the suit says. “Plaintiffs find it frustrating and demeaning to have their views, and even their presence, banned by the Bow School District, especially when they see other spectators allowed to promote their views and opinions at events school.”