Excluding Religious School That "Forfeited a Girls' Playoff Basketball Game to Avoid Playing a Team with a Transgender Athlete" Violated Free Exercise Clause

From today's decision by Second Circuit Judge Michael Park, joined by Judges Richard Wesley and Richard Sullivan, in Mid Vermont Christian School v. Saunders :

Mid Vermont Christian School forfeited a girls' playoff basketball game to avoid playing a team with a transgender athlete. The school believes that forcing girls to compete against biological males would affirm that those males are females, in violation of its religious beliefs. In response to the forfeit, the Vermont Principals' Association ("VPA") expelled the school from all state-sponsored extracurricular activities….

We conclude that Plaintiffs are likely to succeed in showing that the VPA's expulsion of Mid Vermont was not neutral because it displayed hostility toward the school's religious beliefs; Plaintiffs are therefore