Parents Win, Bow School District Pays $275,000 Settlement In 'XX' Wristband Free Speech Case

By Michael Graham, NH Journal

Bow taxpayers are getting more than a slap on the wrist thanks to the local school district’s attempt to ban pro-girls’ sports “XX” wristbands and the parents who wore them. They’re getting stuck with a $275,000 settlement over the Bow School District’s free speech violation.

U.S. District Judge Steven J. McAuliffe entered a stipulated declaratory judgment finding that the district violated the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights by barring the wristbands at a September 2024 girls’ soccer game. The judgment, agreed to as part of a settlement, also protects their right to wear the symbols at future Bow district sporting events.

The outcome follows more than two years of litigation over school officials’ decision to prohibit a message supporting female-only sports while allowing symbols supporting transgender activism and LGBT ideology.

During a November 2024 hearing, Superintendent Marcy Kelley testified that rainbow Pride wristbands would be acceptable, even as she defended banning the pink “XX” wristbands as exclusionary, NHJournal previously reported.

“It’s inclusionary; it’s not targeting or harassing anyone,” Kelley said of the Pride symbols.

The federal court found Bow was engaged in illegal viewpoint discrimination.

Under the settlement, Primex, the district’s public risk pool, will pay $225,000 to the Institute for Free Speech and $50,000 to Lehmann Major List PLLC, the firm of local attorney Richard J. Lehmann.

The lawsuit arose from a Sept. 17, 2024, game between Bow High School and Plymouth Regional High School, whose team included a biological male who identifies as female. A federal court order allowed the male player, Parker Tirrell, to participate.

Parents and a grandfather wore pink wristbands bearing “XX,” a reference to female chromosomes, to silently support female-only sports. School officials, accompanied by a police officer, demanded that they remove the wristbands or leave. A referee halted play until grandfather Eldon Rash removed his wristband.

The district subsequently issued no-trespass orders against fathers Kyle Fellers and Anthony “Andy” Foote, barring them from school property and events for a time. Fellers, Foote, Nicole Foote and Rash sued with representation from the Institute for Free Speech and Lehmann.

Officials defended their actions as necessary to prevent harassment and disruption. McAuliffe denied the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction in April 2025.

At appellate arguments in November 2025, the district’s attorney, Jonathan Shirley, compared free speech to poison in his argument that the district was right to ban future wristband protests.

“You know, poison is often determined by the dose,” Shirley said.

“Your Honors, free speech is not poison,” Institute for Free Speech attorney Del Kolde replied.

In August 2026, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found the plaintiffs likely to succeed on their viewpoint-discrimination claim and returned the case to the district court.

The appellate court found no evidence that the silent protest materially disrupted the game before officials intervened or that any player even saw the wristbands. The plaintiffs had not shouted, chanted, threatened, or confronted the players.

School administrators “cannot favor one side of a debate involving parental speech on an issue of prominent public concern,” the court wrote.

Thursday’s judgment formally declares that the district violated the plaintiffs’ rights and that they may silently wear the wristbands on the sidelines, in spectator areas and in parking lots at any Bow district sporting event.

It binds the district and its school board and remains effective even if the district changes its policies. The court retained jurisdiction to enforce the judgment and settlement.

The judgment addresses the district’s unconstitutional enforcement against the wristbands; it does not invalidate the district’s entire conduct policy. The court dismissed remaining claims, including those against individual administrators, with prejudice.

“Parents don’t surrender their First Amendment rights when they walk into a high school soccer game,” Kolde said in a statement. “This judgment confirms that our clients had a First Amendment right to silently express their views on a major public issue even though school district officials disagreed with their views. We hope this victory will make other school officials think twice before silencing one side of a public debate.”

For Fellers, the victory cannot restore the games he missed.

“All I did was wear a pink wristband to my daughter’s soccer game to stand up for what I believe. For that, officials ordered me to remove it or leave the game, and they banned me from school grounds, preventing me from watching half of my daughter’s soccer games during her senior year of high school. Something I will never get back,” Fellers said.

“It took more than two years, but the court has recognized that what happened to us was wrong. I’m grateful to the Institute for Free Speech for standing with us. This was never just about sports. It’s about every parent’s right to peacefully express views without being punished for it.”

Each of the four plaintiffs will also receive $17.91 under the settlement, symbolizing 1791, the year the First Amendment was ratified.

According to the Institute for Free Speech, the judgment arrives in time for the parents to wear their wristbands to a Bow girls’ varsity soccer state playoff game scheduled for Friday, Nov. 6.

This story was originally published by the NH Journal, an online news publication dedicated to providing fair, unbiased reporting on, and analysis of, political news of interest to New Hampshire. For more stories from the NH Journal, visit NHJournal.com.