Lippman’s Scathing Letter To VHSL Elicits Reply

The executive director of the Virginia High School League this week confirmed in writing that both the legal counsel and executive committee of the VHSL are being appraised of a complaint submitted by Former Falls Church Vice Mayor Hal Lippman concerning a highly discriminatory “mission statement” of the Liberty Christian Academy whose girls basketball team recently won the VHSL Class 3 girls basketball championship.

The Liberty team edged the team from Falls Church’s Meridian High School in the final moments of the championship game in Richmond last month. The VHSL oversees and coordinates all high school sports at all levels throughout the commonwealth.

Lippman, who is current head of Falls Church’s venerable civic activist organization, the Citizens for a Better City (CBC) and in addition to having been vice mayor is a former F.C. School Board member, wrote in an April 12 letter to John “Billy” Haun, VHSL executive director, about “a matter of great concern to me and others in our community.”

He cited the Liberty website the following discriminatory “mission statement,”

“As a Christian ministry birthed by Thomas Road Baptist Church with the same doctrinal statement, LCA adheres to Biblical teaching regarding homosexual practices and transgender lifestyles. LCA does not employ teachers nor does it admit or retain students who are engaged in homosexual or bi-sexual practices, or have a transgender or transexual lifestyle.”

Citing the statement, Lippman wrote, “As a matter of principle and conscience, I and others in our community disagree deeply with this language, which is totally out of keeping with our Falls Church City Public Schools’ stated values and policies.”

He asks in the letter how could a private school like LCA “with such a mission statement be eligible to play in a public school tournament under the authority of the VHSL?” At the conclusion of the letter, he reiterates, “How can a private school with what amounts to a clearly discriminatory mission statement be part of the VHSL and be permitted to compete in public school athletic competitions and other VHSL-sponsored events?”

In his letter, Lippman notes that the LCA statement “is at odds with language in Virginia’s Human Rights Act, which states that ‘it is the policy of the Commonwealth to “safeguard all individuals within the Commonwealth from unlawful discrimination because of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, military status, or disability” in both employment and in “places of public accommodation, including educational institutions and in real estate transactions.”

It turns out, as Lippman cited in his letter, that LCA was admitted into the VHSL despite being a private school in 2015.

As the News-Press reported in an editorial in its March 14, 2024 edition, LCA was admitted to the VHSL in the face of an antitrust lawsuit in 2015 that sought damages of $1.5 million. “An emergency meeting of the VHSL was held at the time, and a vote was taken to avert the damages by admitting the school into the VHSL,” the editorial, entitled “Liberty Christian’s Discriminations,” reported.

The editorial went on to say, “While that tactic was considered controversial in its own right, LCA has gone on to what are considered violations of VHSL standards, including a blatant disregard for the Virginia Standards of Learning and its Common Core standards, instead counting itself commited to academic standards ‘through a Biblical framework.’”

Lippman, in his letter to VHSL, asks concerning LCA’s admission into the public school association the following questions:

• On what grounds did VHSL and its member schools make their decision to admit LCA in 2015?
• Are VHSL and its member schools aware of the discriminatory language in LCA’s current mission statement? When did they learn about it?
• If VHSL and its member schools have been aware of the language of LCA’s current mission statement, how have they responded?
• How does VHSL reconcile the contradictions between LCA’s current mission statement language and the provisions of the Virginia Human Rights Act?

Lippman’s letter was copied to FCCPS Superintendent Dr. Peter Noonan and all members of the current Falls Church School Board.

The March 14 News-Press editorial noted also that LCA “also engages in another form of violation in the form of recruitment of athletes to play for its teams in VHSL competitions, noting that “The star of the school in the high school girls’ basketball playoffs, for example, hails from San Diego, California, and has already been accepted on an athletic scholarship to play for (the late Jerry) Falwell’s Liberty University, down the street from the LCA.”