Former head coach of a vermont high school The snowboarding team filed a federal lawsuit alleging that he was fired earlier this year after he expressed his religious beliefs and views on transgender athletes.
Alliance Defending Freedom filed suit in the US District Court for the District of Vermont on Monday on behalf of David Bloch, who founded the snowboarding equipment at Woodstock Union High School more than a decade ago, after he was fired for discussing his views on trans athletes.
A snowboard atop a mountain during the downhill event at the Audi FIS Lake Louise Ski World Cup on December 2, 2022, at the Lake Louise Ski Resort in Lake Louise, AB. (Brett Holmes/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
The lawsuit alleges that at a competition on February 8, Bloch overheard a conversation between two of his athletes about a male snowboarder who identified as a woman and was competing against other biological women.
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“Coach Bloch joined the conversation to offer that people express themselves differently and that there can be masculine women and feminine men,” the complaint said. “But he claimed that, as a matter of biology, males and females have different DNA, which causes males to develop differently from females and have different physical characteristics. Coach Bloch argued that biological differences generally give men competitive advantages in sporting events.”
The conversation lasted three minutes and the competition was uneventful, according to the lawsuit. Both teams even rode on the same bus together after the competition ended.
But the next day, Bloch met with Windsor Central Supervisory Union superintendent Sherry Sousa, who informed him that he had been fired for violating the district’s harassment, hazing and intimidation (HHB) policies and Vermont Principals Association (VPA) policies after a complaint was filed.
Snowboard And Ski In The Snow. (Universal Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
The lawsuit claims that Sousa accused Bloch of using “derogatory names,” which “created an objectively offensive environment and constituted harassment based on gender identity, warranting termination.”
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Sousa also reportedly said that Bloch’s firing had been decided before the investigation of the complaint was completed. He also noted that Sousa is believed to have a son who “identifies as transgender.”
The lawsuit said that Bloch, a “practicing Roman Catholicism”, he was sharing his beliefs during the conversation and was therefore “engaged in constitutionally protected activity.”
“For more than a decade, Dave has led the Woodstock Union snowboarding program to enormous success in terms of athletic achievement and personal growth for snowboarders. But simply for expressing his views that men and women are biologically different and questioning the appropriateness of a teenager competing against teenagers in athletic competition, school district officials unconstitutionally fired him,” ADF legal counsel Mathew Hoffmann said in a statement. statement.
A snowboarder rides down the hill at the Hoodoo Ski Area on Thursday, March 30, 2023. (Ben Lonergan/The Register-Guard/USA TODAY NETWORK)
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“The First Amendment ensures that Dave, and all other Americans, can freely express their views on an issue of deep public concern without government punishment. We urge the court to quickly rule that officials must reinstate Dave as a snowboard coach and that district and Vermont officials cannot apply unconstitutional ‘harassment’ policies against public employees.”
The lawsuit names multiple defendants, including Sousa and the Windsor Central Supervisory Board. Sousa and Woodstock Union High School did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
