By Mike Donoghue, Standard Correspondent
The founder and longtime coach of the varsity snowboard teams at Woodstock Union High School says he was unfairly dismissed from his post in February one day after joining in a private discussion by two of his athletes about a transgender student competing on behalf of another nearby school, according to federal court records.
David J. Bloch filed a federal civil rights lawsuit last week against School Superintendent Sherry Sousa, the Windsor Central Supervisory Union School Board, Jay Nichols, executive director of the Vermont Principals’ Association and Heather Bouchey, interim secretary of the Vermont Agency of Education. While the seven-town WCSU is named as a defendant, the district changed its name to the Mountain Views Unified Union School District on July 1.
The lawyers for Bloch also have filed for a preliminary injunction against Sousa, the board, Nichols and Bouchey for violating the coach’s First Amendment rights.
Bloch has requested the preliminary injunction hearing be expedited and that oral arguments be heard in court. Bloch seeks to be reinstated immediately and have all records of the incident held by the defendants destroyed. He also wants the defendants stopped from enforcing unrealistic policies dealing with hazing, harassment and bullying, court papers show.
The case is assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Christina Reiss in Burlington. No hearing date had been set as of Tuesday night.
The defendants normally have about a month to file a written response with the court.
Bloch noted Sousa handed him a termination notice one day after the reported conversation, but she also said the investigation had not been completed.
Sousa reportedly said she did not have all the details of the Feb. 8 conversation, but told Bloch he would get the final report the day after the meeting, the lawsuit said. It said Bloch has asked repeatedly for the report, but still has not seen it — more than five months later.
Sousa “remained visibly angry throughout the meeting with Coach Bloch,” the lawsuit noted.
Bloch claims his due process rights were trampled on. The lawsuit maintains Sousa never informed him of the allegations against him; that an investigation was underway; never discussed the policies that reportedly were violated, and never discussed any confidentiality rights.
Bloch also maintains that before he was terminated, he was never given proper notice, never explained his rights to appeal Sousa’s decision, never given a chance to present witnesses or evidence during the investigation.
He also said his personnel file has no record of any discipline, reprimands or complaints, the lawsuit noted.
The Vermont Standard was able to verify that the male student transitioning to a female was a member of the Hartford High School snowboard team and the school calendar said the competition on Feb. 8 was at Jay Peak Ski Resort.
Sousa said Friday that she and the district had not seen the lawsuit and were unable to respond specifically about any allegations.
“The district is committed to providing a supportive and inclusive environment for all of our community including members who are LGBTQIA+,” she said in an email to the Standard.
Sousa on Tuesday failed to respond to a message seeking an update.
School Board Chair Keri Bristow referred questions to its lawyer, Dina Atwood at the Burlington law firm of Stitzel, Page & Fletcher. Bristow did acknowledge that a claim that the school board had ratified the termination was untrue. The minutes of the school board meetings show the dismissal was never discussed in public session.
Jay Nichols, reached at the VPA office, said the first he heard about the Woodstock firing was when he received the lawsuit last Thursday. He said he has forwarded the court papers to the association’s lawyer.
Nichols said he does not know Bloch and noted the VPA has little direct contact with high school coaches. He said much of the VPA contact is with athletic directors unless a coach serves on an association committee.
Bloch is claiming five causes of action including the lack of due process according to his 32-page lawsuit. Four of the legal claims center on the First Amendment, including unlawful retaliation and prior restraint by limiting speech.
He seeks reinstatement and a lifting of a ban that he can never coach again in the district. Bloch, who founded the program in 2011 and had been the only head coach in the history of the team, also wants all records about the termination purged.
The Woodstock team, under Bloch’s direction, has been very successful having consistently won top three placements statewide and at least three individuals winning state titles, the lawsuit said. Bloch still remains in contact with about a dozen alumni from the past teams, court papers say.
Bloch received a $4,439 annual stipend for coaching the team for the 2022-23 season, the lawsuit said. It noted his contract required providing “skills necessary for excellent achievement in the sport,” planning and scheduling team practices, working with the athletic director to create interscholastic events, overseeing safety when the team is snowboarding, recommending the purchase of appropriate equipment and maintaining insurance and attendance records along with other similar paperwork.
Bloch is represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, which says it is the world’s largest legal organization committed to protecting freedom of speech, religious liberty, marriage and family parental rights and the sanctity of human life. ADL says it wins nearly 80 percent of the cases it takes on, including 15 wins at the U.S. Supreme Court since 2011.
ADF won a $125,000 out-of-court settlement in Vermont last month involving Randolph Union High School where officials attempted to block the free speech of a 14-year-old girl volleyball player and her father. They were unhappy that a male student, who was transitioning to a girl and was part of the volleyball team, was in the girl’s locker room as the girl team members undressed and changed clothes.
The Woodstock incident
Bloch said in court papers he was in a Vermont ski lodge on Feb. 8 waiting for a snowboard competition to begin when a boy and a girl from his team, sitting at the same table with him, began discussing transgender-identifying athletes competing in sports.
The conversation was not disruptive, nor did it appear it would become disruptive, the court papers noted. The boy expressed his opinion that males competing against females was unfair based on differences in biology, the lawsuit said.
The girl responded by accusing the boy of being transphobic, the lawsuit said. Bloch said that is when he joined the conversation. He said people express themselves in different ways and there can be masculine women and feminine men, the lawsuit said. He said as a matter of biology males and females have different DNA.
In an effort to illustrate the differences, Bloch gave the example of an archaeologist digging up bones would categorize them as belonging to a male or female because of the inherent differences, the lawsuit said.
Coach Bloch discussed that different physical characteristics generally give males competitive advantages in athletic competition, the lawsuit said.
Bloch acknowledges in the lawsuit that he is “a practicing Roman Catholic who believes that God creates males and females with immutable sex. His understanding of science complements his religious beliefs. Coach Bloch believes, based on scientific evidence, that there are only two sexes, which are male and female and that sex is determined by a person’s chromosomes.”
Bloch said the conversation was respectful and lasted less than 3 minutes. The transgender student was never mentioned by name, the lawsuit said.
The Woodstock team shared a bus back to Windsor County with the high school team with the male that identifies as a female, the lawsuit noted. There was no tension on the bus and Bloch said he had no further discussion about the appropriateness of males competing against females.
The Vermont Standard has been able to learn the identity of the two Woodstock team members that were in the discussion, but is not identifying them at this time. While the name of the Hartford student-athlete also is known in the community, the Standard will not make the identity known at this time.
The next day, Woodstock Athletic Director Jack Boymer told Bloch a complaint had been received about the Feb. 8 conversation, the lawsuit said. Bloch confirmed to Boymer there had been a conversation by the two students.
The lawsuit does not say if the complaint came from Hartford High or from a member of the Woodstock team.
Bloch said about 3 p.m. the same day he met with Sousa and was handed a notice of “immediate termination” for purportedly violating policies created by the school board and VPA concerning Hazing, Harassment and Bullying, the lawsuit said.
There were three weeks left in the snowboard season. Bloch said he was due to be retained for the 2023-24 winter season. The dismissal was never publicly announced by the athletic director, school principal or superintendent.
Other cases
The Bloch case has fact patterns that resemble two other recent school-related lawsuits in the area.
The lawyers representing Bloch are the same legal team that handled the discrimination case of the Randolph Union High School female volleyball player who was improperly disciplined when she questioned why a boy, who was transitioning to a female, was in the girl’s locker room when the team was changing clothes. The school also suspended her father, who was a middle school coach, when he came to his daughter’s defense in public.
However, the Alliance Defending Freedom, which also represents Bloch, won an out-of-court settlement of $125,000 in the Randolph case in June. The Randolph student and her father both had their records scrubbed of any reference to the case.
The Orange Southwest School District Board, Superintendent Layne Millington and Co-principals Lisa Floyd and Caty Sutton were among the defendants sued for their actions, court records show.
The proposed school suspension for the student was lifted. Also, her father was reinstated as part of the settlement. The father, Travis Allen, maintained it was a huge victory for the First Amendment and anybody who wanted to speak their mind, according to the White River Valley Herald.
Also Bloch’s dismissal came just one month after former Windsor High School Principal Tiffany Riley received a $650,000 out-of-court settlement for the unlawful discharge lawsuit she filed against the Mount Ascutney School District, its school board members and superintendent.
The Windsor public settlement in January came after Vermont’s chief federal judge had ruled in March 2021 that “undisputed facts established” the school district and six board members had failed to follow due process properly in discharging Riley in June 2020.
Riley maintained Mount Ascutney school officials misinterpreted a statement she had placed on her personal Facebook Page about Black Lives Matter. Named in the lawsuit were then-Superintendent David Baker, School Board members Elizabeth Burrows, Nancy Pedrick and Bill Yates and now former members Amy McMullen, Beth Carter, and Kris Garnjost.
Riley, a 1989 Woodstock Union High School graduate, had said it was hard to find a subsequent job in education. She said after her firing she applied for nearly 50 school jobs and never even got one response.