HS football player — suspended for game allegedly for saying there are 'only two genders' when he was off campus — is suing school district



A New Hampshire high school football player who was suspended for a game allegedly for saying there are "only two genders" is suing his school district, the Portsmouth Herald reported.

What are the details?

The Exeter High School freshman and his mother filed the Nov. 4 suit in Rockingham Superior Court against New Hampshire School Administrative Unit 16 through attorney Ian Huyett of Cornerstone Action, a nonprofit Christian advocacy organization, the paper said.

The lawsuit says the student's September suspension violated his constitutional free speech rights as well as the state's bill of rights since he voiced his Catholic belief that there are only male and female genders, the Herald said.

According to the lawsuit, the student was speaking with two friends on a bus after school about using Spanish third-person pronouns to refer to themselves when a female student overheard the chat and interjected that there are "more than two genders," the paper said.

The student filing the suit responded that there are "only two genders" — and later actually got a text from the student who confronted him, the Herald said, citing the suit.

"[The student] pressed [the student now suing the school] on the topic of gender, demanding, 'Give me one valid reason why there's only two genders,'" the lawsuit adds, according to the Herald. "The two then had a contentious exchange of texts on the issue."

Texts allegedly turned over to administration

The lawsuit states that those texts were turned over to the school's administration and that Assistant Principal Marcy Dovholuk and Bill Ball — athletic director and varsity football coach — pulled the student filing the suit out of class, the paper said.

"Dovholuk and Ball stated that the texts showed that [the student now suing the school] was 'not respecting pronouns' and that he needed to 'respect how people identify,'" the lawsuit states, according to the Herald.

The paper said Ball then allegedly said he was suspended from playing football for a week, which was later reduced to one game after the student's mother told Ball her son did nothing wrong, the suit says. He also was punished for using "inappropriate language" in his texts such as "bozo" and "stfu" (i.e., "shut the [expletive] up"), the Herald said.

Gender Nonconforming Students policy

Besides seeking nominal damages, the lawsuit also takes issue with the school district's policy regarding gender-nonconforming students, the paper said.

The lawsuit states that the policy penalizes students who, due to their religious beliefs, don't address non-binary students with their chosen gender-identity pronouns, the Herald added.

"[The student] does not deny that he violated the Gender Nonconforming Students policy," the lawsuit states, according to the paper. "He in fact denied, and will continue to deny, that any person can belong to a gender other than that of 'male' or 'female.' … [The student] will never refer to any individual person using plural pronouns such as 'they,' using contrived pronouns such as 'ze,' or with any similar terminology that reflects values which [the student] does not share."

The Herald reported that, according to the policy, a "student has the right to be addressed by a name and pronoun that corresponds to the student's gender identity" and that "the intentional or persistent refusal to respect a student's gender identity … is a violation of this policy."

The lawsuit adds that the high school administration did not have the authority to punish the student in question because the content of the student's text messages were the result of an off-campus conversation initiated by another student, the paper said.

SAU 16 Superintendent David Ryan told the Herald that district officials "are in the process of reviewing this complaint with legal counsel and will be able to share a statement once we have completed that review."

Anything else?

In June, Exeter High School marked the hands of prom attendees according to their COVID-19 vaccination status, which upset a number of parents and students — as well as a state lawmaker — but was defended by Principal Michael Monahan.

Prom attendees' hands are marked according to COVID-19 vaccination status — and parents, students are angry



A New Hampshire high school marked the hands of last weekend's prom attendees according to their COVID-19 vaccination status, a move that has upset a number of parents and students — as well as a state lawmaker — but is being defended by the principal, WBTS-CD reported.

What are the details?

Republican state Rep. Melissa Litchfield wrote on her Facebook page about the growing controversy surrounding Exeter High School's prom and told the station she had been contacted by more than a dozen parents.

Litchfield noted to WBTS that some parents and students are upset over the decision to mark the hands of unvaccinated students as they walked into the senior prom: "Children that were not vaccinated were written on in black Sharpie on their hands, and those that were vaccinated had some type of a red marker put on them."

She shared photos with the station showing hands of prom attendees marked in black.

Image source: WBTS-CD video screenshot

A statement from School Administrative Unit 16 said "dancing was divided among three dance floors. During the dancing, after every few songs they were asked to raise their hands to determine who they were around," the New Hampshire Union Leader reported.

One person who complained to Litchfield said the prom attendees were treated "like prisoners in Nazi Germany. Marking them, thus singling them out, and then having to raise their hands is beyond tolerable," according to her Facebook post.

"You had to produce your papers, and if you didn't produce your papers, you were branded with a black Sharpie," Litchfield added to WBTS. "What does that mean to you? I'm just gonna let it sit there."

State Rep. Melissa LitchfieldImage source: WBTS-CD video screenshot

'Parents are afraid to speak up'

The station reported that parents and students who contacted Litchfield refused to go on camera over fear of retaliation from the school district.

"I'm just here because parents are afraid to speak up, and they needed a voice, and I understand," Litchfield added to WBTS.

What did school officials have to say?

The district told the station that marking prom attendees' hands was part of the school's contact tracing system that allowed all students to attend the event whether or not they had been vaccinated.

"Our student and parent feedback has been extremely positive regarding the prom experience," principal Mike Monahan said in a statement to WBTS. "We are aware that some concerns have been expressed that students were singled out or had their privacy violated. We made every effort possible — while adhering to contact tracing guidelines — to ensure that this did not happen. We hope the community will understand that while no model is perfect, this model let the students enjoy a close to normal and highly desired experience to cap off their senior year. That's the memory we want to leave them with."

This district added to the station that students were made aware of the contact tracing system when they registered for prom — but Litchfield said parents didn't know and are frustrated they couldn't speak out beforehand.

Anything else?

SAU 16 said the list of prom attendees didn't contain any personally identifiable information regarding student vaccinations and did not list numbers assigned to students, the paper noted.

"Only a single set of cards with this information exists for tracking purposes, and the class advisor was the only individual that possessed them," SAU 16 noted, according the Union Leader. "Those cards will be destroyed in the next few days. As a result, there will be no unique identifiers that can be tied back to students who were unable to show proof of vaccination."

The SAU 16 statement said the prom — which attracted more than 300 attendees — was held outside under a tent, the paper added.

"No contract tracing system is perfect for crowds this large and not all students could be traced in a prom environment," the SAU 16 statement added, according to the Union Leader. "However, without a contact tracing system, all attendees would have had to be quarantined if there was a positive case tied back to the event."

SAU 19 told the paper that as of Thursday no COVID-19 cases associated with the prom had been reported.