Parents are suing school district for banning silent protest 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 speech, in this case black armbands opposing the Vietnam War.

The problem was probably solved in 1969 Tinker Yet the precedent continues to seep into the courts as school districts suppress the same passive form of expression but apply it to a newer controversial issue: gender identity versus gender rights.

Parents and grandparents who silently protested men’s eligibility for girls’ soccer by wearing pink wristbands with the letters “XX” in reference to a pair of female chromosomes have sued New Hampshire County officials, officials and even a soccer referee, demanding retaliation for their statement, including a ban on entering the school premises.

The defendants did not react Only News inquiries.

Kyle Fellers, his former father-in-law Eldon Rash, and Anthony and Nicole Foote are seeking an injunction against the district rules and athletics manual used on their armbands and signs, as well as any other “non-obstructive expression of political or social views based on public reaction or veto screaming” and against no-trespass orders issued to Fellers and Anthony Foote.

They are represented by the Institute of Free Speech (IFS), whose retaliation lawsuit filed on behalf of a conservative professor was dismissed last week for lack of legal standing, but has been appealed.

Their actions at the game came shortly after a federal court ruling that prevented the Granite State from enforcing a law (HB 1205) that “prohibits biological males from participating in women’s athletics,” but only applied to two male athletes who sued over the right to “attempt , training, competing and playing on girls’ teams, rather than with every man who identifies as a girl.

President Obama’s nominee, Landya McCafferty, cited precedent from the First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that interpreted the Supreme Court’s Title VII ruling regarding transgender employment discrimination Bostock as well as application to the Title IX educational context. The High Court previously said it did not “prejudge” whether the precedent applied to other provisions of the Civil Rights Act.

The Biden administration’s Title IX regulation, which reinterpreted the Sex Discrimination Act as protecting and prioritizing gender identity over gender, has been blocked in more than half the states and hundreds of other school districts and colleges in other states by court orders , which dismissed the federal To’s argument Bostock applies to Title IX.

This summer, the Fifth and Sixth Circuits upheld two of those orders, even though President Biden’s nominations to both three-judge panels would have allowed Title IX’s gender non-identity provisions to go into effect.

Supporters of women-only sports received more good news last week when a federal judge issued an injunction stopping the University of New Mexico from enforcing its viewpoint-based security fee policy against hosts of an event with former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines, who spoke about competing almost a year ago with transgender record holder Lia Thomas.

UNM initially requested more than $10,000 from its Turning Point USA chapter and the Leadership Institute, where Gaines heads a center of the same name, to pay 33 police officers. She later billed them half the amount, but instead of paying, the two organizations filed a lawsuit asking the court to stop the threatening retaliation, including the loss of their charter and a ban on campus events.

“The court clearly sees the double standard” of the university “by allowing drag queen shows to be held on campus without any security fees,” TPUSA chapter co-chair Jonathan Gonzales said in a press release issued by plaintiffs’ attorneys at the Southeastern Legal Foundation.

The first circuit understood narrowly Tinker during a ruling this summer in Middleborough Public Schools in Massachusetts, which banned student Liam Morrison from wearing T-shirts that read “only two genders” – and, after the first punishment, “genders censored” – as his response to the pro-LGBTQ news district.

Monday’s IFS lawsuit is similar but involves non-students. Named as defendants were Superintendent Marcy Kelley, New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association football referee Steve Rossetti of the Bow School District, Bow High School Principal Matt Fisk and Athletic Director Michael Desilets, and Bow Police Lt. Phillip Lamy.

They treated the district as “a First Amendment-free zone from which they could expel parents who spoke in ways that displeased the government,” the lawsuit alleges, citing the district’s policy requiring “mutual respect, civility and orderly conduct among all people at school” on school grounds or at a school event” and the athletics policy against “(un)sportsmanlike competition in the stands.”

After Judge McCafferty blocked the state law, Desilets told Nicole Foote she couldn’t stop men from playing soccer games against girls like her daughter, despite her protests about “unfair competition and the risk of injury to female athletes,” according to the lawsuit.

The day before the Sept. 17 game, Desilets sent an email to players’ families, reminding them that the NHIAA prohibits “inappropriate signs, references and (and) language,” but assuring them that “some differing opinions about tomorrow’s game… are OK “.

Fellers and Foote’s husband bought blank pink wristbands “which athletes often wear to raise awareness for breast cancer” and wrote black Xs on them, declaring them no different from political candidates’ T-shirts, Pride flags and “messages about global warming,” which viewers often wear to extracurricular activities, the suit says.

They handed out wristbands to “about a half-dozen other spectators who asked for them,” and they all wore them in the second half, and Andy Foote “put a Riley Gaines sign on the windshield of his Jeep” at halftime.

Andy Foote agreed when Desilets told him to remove his blindfold as a prohibited “protest”, but Fellers refused, prompting Director Fisk and Lt. Lamy to give him an ultimatum. Lamy falsely claimed they were on private property and that she was wearing a camera “that should have recorded” what the lawsuit called “heated words.”

Grandpa Rash “observed some of the commotion” and took Fellers’ wristband and placed it on his wrist, prompting Fisk and Desilets to give him an ultimatum, some of which was filmed by Andy Foote, after which Rash went to his car and remained there, the lawsuit alleges.

At this point, Judge Rosetti intervened, sending the teams back to their benches and ordering spectators to remove their blindfolds and stop “arguing” about the “First Amendment issue” or Bow High School would forfeit the game and lose playoff eligibility.

In the parking lot, Fellers held a “Protect Women’s Sports for Women Athletes” poster that hung on his car’s windshield during the game, no different from the “bumper stickers and political and social messages” he saw on school cars at the property.

Rossetti called him a “f***ing a**hole” and Lamy ordered him to leave the school grounds, even though Fellers “still had to pick up his kids and sister,” who were at the game.

The next day, Superintendent Kelley told the community about a “form of protest” that had suspended the game for 10-15 minutes, in violation of “our policy of public conduct regarding school property,” which Desilets mentioned in his pre-game message.

She gave Andy Foote a banning order from entering school property and from any “sporting or extra-curricular events” on or off school grounds, which could potentially be extended for the entire season, claiming he led a protest “intended and intended to intimidating, threatening, harassing and discouraging” a student from the opposing team. (The suit does not specify whether this player was male.)

Fellers were given the same basic order, then two “appendices” listing exceptions, not including “games, athletic practices and (and) extracurricular activities,” but specifically prohibiting pick-up and drop-off at high school football games and “in a manner implicit” in the case of cross-country events.

The lawsuit says the Footes re-donned pink wristbands during the Sept. 24 game, after the trespass order had expired, under “long-sleeved shirts,” while members of Moms for Liberty wore them openly and without interference. .

Under his ban, Fellers had to solicit others to “drive his children to and from school” and extracurricular activities, and he was barred from attending a homecoming game to watch his daughter play.

The content of the lawsuit shows that the defendants are trying to cool the plaintiffs’ expression with the threat of future bans on practicing sports during the fall sports season. “Plaintiffs find it frustrating and demeaning that the Bow School District prohibits their views and even their presence, especially when they see that other spectators are allowed to promote their viewpoints and opinions at school events.”