The school is requesting mercy from the state athletic association despite Monarch High’s determination that the inclusion of a transgender woman on the girls’ tennis team violated state laws.
The Florida High School Athletic Association’s $16,500 fine is being appealed, according to a request from the Coconut Creek school. Monarch High must pay any fines with its own internal resources, according to a school district official.
The state sports association, which is overseen by Governor Ron DeSantis’ appointees, reprimanded Monarch last month for breaking the 2021 state law known as the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act.” The law prohibits any student who was born male from participating in a school’s girls’ sports team.
After learning about the player, Broward Schools Superintendent Peter Licata initiated an internal investigation in November. Five school officials, including Principal James Cecil and Jessica Norton, a tech specialist at Monarch, were suspended or partially reassigned by him.
According to a district official, the investigation is expected to be finished by the middle of February.
The sports organization also imposed several other penalties, such as forbidding transgender students from participating in high school sports for an entire year, placing the school on probation for the same period of time, and mandating that school administrators go through various compliance training sessions.
According to a letter the association sent to acting director Moira Sweeting-Miller on December 12, Monarch was given 10 business days to appeal the rulings or request that the sanctions be reduced if it thought they were too severe.
District spokesperson Keyla Concepcion told the South Florida Sun Sentinel, “The school is not appealing the finding, but on Monday, December 18, the school’s acting director emailed the association to appeal the sentence by asking for consideration of a reduced fine.” “The school is waiting for a response.”
In Sweeting-Miller’s correspondence, neither the reason for the request nor how much she wanted the fine to be reduced were stated.
Sweeting-Miller wrote to Craig Damon, the association’s executive director, on December 18 to say, “I am emailing you to find out what are the next steps for the compliance studio and would also like to know if there is a chance of reducing the fine.”
Whether the association may agree to the request is unknown. Damon was due to return on January 3 according to an out-of-office message sent to Sweeting Miller. On Wednesday, neither he nor a spokesperson could be reached.
The district does not seem to be objecting to the decision to forbid the student from participating in any of the association’s participating sports teams through November 20, 2024, which are almost all Florida high school athletic teams. The child’s family, however, is contesting that in federal court.
In June 2021, the Norton family sued the state, contesting its legality. The student was a member of the middle school girls’ soccer team at the time.
Early in November, a federal judge sided with the state but gave the 16-year-old student and her family the opportunity to amend their complaint.
Children born male have an unfair competitive advantage if they play on girls’ sports teams, according to the judge, officials from DeSantis’ administration, and the athletic association. Advocates for transgender people have argued that certain hormones lessen the advantages and that discrimination against trans people is the driving force behind such laws.
The Nortons’ LGBTQ rights organization, the Human Rights Campaign, confirmed in December that the family will file an amended complaint. As of Wednesday evening, it had not yet been filed. The due date is January 11.
In a statement released last month, the organization denounced the sports agency’s sanctions against the school.
The association’s claim to guarantee equitable opportunities for student athletes rings hollow, according to Jason Starr, litigation strategist for the Human Rights Campaign. The actions “do not alter the fact that the law prohibiting transgender women from playing sports with their peers is unconstitutionally rooted in anti-transgender bias.”
Starr declared that “the careless disregard for the welfare of our client and her family, as well as all trans kids across the state, will not be overlooked.”
