Bow schools cite ‘hostile’ environment, outside activists in continued opposition to sports protests

Protesters wear pink armbands on the sidelines of the Bow girls soccer game on Tuesday, September 24, 2024. GEOFF FORESTER/Monitor staff, file
Published: 01-02-2025 2:43 PM |
Protests from outsiders and potential harm to students are driving the Bow School District’s continuing efforts to prevent parents from resuming pink armband demonstrations against transgender athletes, according to documents filed in a federal court case challenging the district’s actions to stop the protest last year.
The school district opposes a preliminary injunction that would allow parents to silently protest the participation of transgender athletes in girls’ sports. Bow officials cited concerns about a repeat of the September incident when more than 50 protesters gathered on the sidelines of a girls’ soccer match in Bow, many of whom had no connection to the teams playing and traveled from across the state to join the demonstration.
Among the participants were members of Moms for Liberty, a group that advocates for parental rights.
“The district should not be forced to endure tens or hundreds of so-called ‘silent’ protesters who, just by sheer number of wristbands and signs, create an environment that is hostile to the educational setting of the event,” wrote the school district in its recent court filing. “This scenario is not far-fetched given that Moms for Liberty descended upon a Bow soccer match this fall to undertake their own protest after word spread about the events at the September 17 match.”
The first protests began at a Bow High School girls’ soccer game against Plymouth Regional High School. That day, two parents — Anthony Foote, and Kyle Fellers — wore the pink armbands. Later Eldon Rash, a family member of Fellers also wore the armband.
A transgender athlete was playing for Plymouth during the match.
School officials intervened, asking the parents to remove the armbands and issued no-trespass orders to Foote and Fellers.
This triggered a federal lawsuit that accused school district officials of violating freedom of speech rights.
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In November, parents and school district officials presented their arguments over two days of testimony before Judge Steven McAuliffe on whether the district can stop adults from expressing their opinions at school events. The judge hasn’t decided whether to issue a preliminary injunction to block the district’s protest restrictions, and no pretrial date has been set.
The plaintiffs argue in their brief that the school district is censoring free speech. Specifically, they claim the district is preventing adults at extracurricular events who express the belief that biological boys shouldn’t compete in girls’ sports. The plaintiffs say this restriction — labeled by the district as “trans-exclusionary” — amounts to “textbook viewpoint discrimination.”
In a post-testimony brief, the plaintiffs urged the court not to establish a new standard for limiting adult speech.
“Doing so would infantilize adult citizens and has the practical effect of declaring certain commonly held sociopolitical views to be entirely off-limits in a public setting where it is natural to express those views,” wrote the plaintiffs.
The debate over transgender athletes in girls’ sports in New Hampshire began after Gov. Chris Sununu signed a law in July prohibiting students assigned male at birth from competing on female sports teams in grades 5 through 12.
Sruthi Gopalakrishnan can be reached at sgopalakrishnan@cmonitor.com