“Thanks to (DeSantis), Florida passed a law that protects girls’ sports, and we will not tolerate any school violating this law,” said Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. wrote in a statement on social media.. “We applaud the swift action taken by the FHSAA to ensure this illegal activity has serious consequences.”
According to a letter sent Tuesday that was first reported by the Daily Signal, the Florida State Athletics Association said the Monarchs had violated state regulations and women by allowing transgender athletes to compete on the women’s volleyball team this fall and last year. It was determined that the Sports Fairness Act had been violated.
As a result, the FHSAA declared the student ineligible to play sports until November 2024, placed the school on athletic probation and imposed a $16,500 fine. Additionally, school representatives will be required to attend FHSAA “Compliance” seminars this year and next, and will host “Eligibility” and “Compliance” workshops on campus for associations to attend by June 30th. There is a need to.
The monarch can appeal this decision within 10 days. “The investigation into this matter continues at this time,” Broward County Public Schools officials said in a statement.
The sanctions are the latest impact on the volleyball team since Broward district officials transferred five Monarch employees to off-campus assignments in November amid an ongoing local investigation. The district has, at least temporarily, fired Principal James Cecil, Assistant Principal Kenneth May and Athletic Director Dione Hester. Girls volleyball coach and IT technician Jessica Norton and coach Alex Burgess were warned by the Florida Department of Education of the “serious consequences” their campuses would face.
One of the employees, Norton, is the mother of a transgender student at the center of the dispute. In 2021, the Norton family challenged Florida’s transgender sports law in federal court, arguing that the policy would “force her to give up a sport that means so much to her.” A federal judge later rejected the challenge.
Norton said she and her family have received an “outpouring of love and support” since being reassigned to Broward. Monarch University students walked out of class at least twice to protest the district’s decision to punish school officials. Groups such as Safe Schools South Florida have objected to the development of investigations into sports teams, calling them “discriminatory or punitive actions targeting inclusivity.”
Florida’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act would make women’s sports, including intramural and club teams, off-limits to men based on the biological sex listed on a student’s birth certificate. It has established. The measure joins more than two dozen other Republican-leaning states pushing similar ideas and was widely praised by Republicans as “protecting the integrity” of women’s athletics.
Opponents of the law argued that it discriminates against transgender athletes and fuels transphobia.