Parents and a grandfather put on pink wristbands. School officials told them to take them off or leave. A federal judge has now said the school broke the First Amendment.
On Nov. 5, 2026, U.S. District Judge Steven J. McAuliffe entered a stipulated declaratory judgment in *Fellers et al. v. Kelley et al.*, No. 1:24-cv-00311-SM-AJ (D.N.H.). The Institute for Free Speech represented the families.
What the court ordered
The judgment states that the plaintiffs have a First Amendment right to silently wear pink wristbands bearing the XX symbol on the sidelines, in the spectator’s area, or in the parking lot of any Bow District sporting event.
It finds that Bow School District violated those rights when it barred the wristbands at the girls’ varsity soccer game on Sept. 17, 2024.
The order binds the district and its Board of Education. It stays in force even if the district amends Policy KFA or the Bow High School Athletics Handbook. The court retains jurisdiction to enforce the judgment and the settlement. Remaining claims — including those against Superintendent Marcy Kelley, Athletic Director Michael Desilets, and Principal Matt Fisk — were dismissed with prejudice.
The settlement
Under the settlement agreement, the district’s risk pool, Primex, pays $275,000 in attorneys’ fees and costs: $225,000 to the Institute for Free Speech and $50,000 to Lehmann Major List PLLC. Each of the four plaintiffs — Kyle Fellers, Anthony “Andy” Foote, Nicole Foote, and Eldon Rash — receives $17.91. The Institute for Free Speech says that sum symbolizes the year the states ratified the First Amendment.
The district denies liability in the settlement papers. The declaratory judgment is what the court entered on the First Amendment claim.
How it started
According to the Institute for Free Speech, the parents and grandfather wore the pink “XX” bands — a reference to female chromosomes — to protest a male competing on the opposing girls’ team. School officials, with a police officer present, ordered the bands removed. The referee halted play until one spectator took his off. Officials later issued trespass orders that, for a time, barred Fellers and Andy Foote from school grounds and from watching their children’s games.
After the district court denied a preliminary injunction in April 2025, the plaintiffs appealed. In August 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit found a likelihood of success on the viewpoint-discrimination claim. The court wrote that the Sept. 17 protest “fell short of harassment and disruption,” and that administrators “cannot favor one side of a debate involving parental speech on an issue of prominent public concern.”
The judgment landed in time for the families to wear the bands at a Bow girls’ varsity soccer playoff game scheduled for Nov. 6, the Institute for Free Speech said.
Fuentes
- Stipulated Declaratory Judgment, Nov. 5, 2026
- Settlement Agreement
- Institute for Free Speech press release, Nov. 5, 2026
- IFS case page
- First Circuit opinion, Aug. 26, 2026
*Cover photo: high school soccer stadium (Woodland Hills High School, Pittsburgh area), G. Edward Johnson / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0 — not Bow High School.*