When high-school snowboarding coach Dave Bloch expressed his opinion to two of his snowboarding team’s members in February that males had distinct physical differences due to their sex that gave them an unfair advantage over females, he was fired.
Bloch started the snowboarding team more than 10 years ago at Woodstock Union High School (WUHS) in Vermont, and over the years it met with great success.
It was during a competition with a team that had a “transgender” (a male claiming to be a female) participant that the conversation took place. One student took the traditional and rational position that males shouldn’t compete with females, while the other student claimed such a statement was “transphobic.” Bloch entered the conversation, expressing his views that there are two sexes determined by their DNA and that consequently males have a physical advantage over females.
The conversation — private, between the three people — lasted three minutes. The next day, Bloch was fired.
Not only was he fired for violating the school’s “harassment” policy, but the district ruled that he could never again hold any other coaching position in any sport in that district.
In June, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) entered that conversation by filing a lawsuit against the Windsor Central Supervisory Union Board and the Vermont Principals’ Association. And because the school claimed it was just following the state of Vermont’s law regarding “harassment,” ADF included the state’s education director as a defendant as well.
From the lawsuit:
By terminating Coach Bloch, Defendants Sousa and Board unconstitutionally retaliated against him based on his protected speech….
Plaintiff moves this Court for a preliminary injunction against Defendants, their agents, officials, servants, employees, and any other persons acting on their behalf:
1. Ordering Defendants to reinstate him as snowboarding coach; refrain from enforcing their ban on considering him “for any future coaching positions”; and purge from any records in their possession, custody, or control any reference to his termination as snowboarding coach; and
2. Enjoining enforcement of Defendants’ HHB law, policies, and procedures in so far as they prohibit … expressing views on differences in and the immutability of sex and the appropriateness of a teenage male competing against teenage females in an athletic competition, and … referring to a male as a male.
The lawsuit detailed the three-minute conversation that got Coach Bloch fired:
Coach Bloch was sitting at a table with two of his snowboarders, Student 1 (a male) and Student 2 (a female), who were discussing transgender identifying athletes.
Student 1 offered his opinion that males competing against females was unfair based on biological differences.
Student 2 responded by accusing Student 1 of being transphobic.
At that point, Coach Bloch joined the conversation. Coach Bloch recognized that people express themselves in different ways and that there can be masculine women and feminine men.
He also asserted his belief that as a matter of biology, males and females have different DNA. Coach Bloch said that those differences in DNA cause males to develop differently from females and to have different physical characteristics, which generally give males competitive advantages in sports.
According to the school district, Bloch’s views constituted “harassment based on gender identity.”
The State of Vermont defines harassment as including:
an incident or incidents of verbal, written, visual, or physical conduct … based on or motivated by a student’s or a student’s family member’s actual or perceived race, creed, color, national origin, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability that has the purpose or effect of objectively and substantially undermining and detracting from or interfering with a student’s educational performance or access to school resources or creating an objectively intimidating, hostile, or offensive environment.
ADF claims that the school retaliated against Coach Bloch because of what he said, because his speech offended official state policy. It put the matter succinctly:
No one should lose their job for speaking the truth.
The First Amendment protects the rights of all Americans to peacefully share their beliefs without fear of government punishment. This means that government officials cannot terminate an employee simply because he expresses a belief that they do not like.
No trial date has been set. If ADF and Coach Bloch succeed, then all such “transgender equality” nonsense affecting and infecting every public school in Vermont will end.
