College students staged a walkout at their South Florida highschool Tuesday after the principal and different staffers had been reassigned over a transgender pupil being allowed to play on a ladies volleyball group.
The workers at Monarch Excessive Faculty in Coconut Creek, north of Fort Lauderdale, had been moved to nonschool websites amid an investigation into “allegations of improper pupil participation in sports activities,” the native faculty district confirmed.
“Though we can’t remark additional, we’ll proceed to comply with state legislation and can take acceptable motion primarily based on the result of the investigation,” John Sullivan, Broward County Public Colleges’ chief communications and legislative affairs officer, stated in an announcement.
D.A. Varela/Miami Herald/Tribune Information Service through Getty Pictures
With the Equity in Ladies’s Sports activities Act, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in 2021 made it legislation that transgender women and girls can’t play on feminine sports activities groups at faculties.
Peter Licata, the superintendent at Broward County Public Colleges, stated the workers had been relocated after a constituent referred to as him instantly final week about “some elements that weren’t acceptable for ladies volleyball.”
“We need to do that proper,” Licata stated at a Tuesday press convention. “No person’s responsible of something at this level. That’s what the investigation is for.”
A spokesperson for Florida’s Training Division stated it expects “critical penalties” for anybody who breaks state legislation.
“Underneath Governor DeSantis, boys won’t ever be allowed to play ladies’ sports activities. It’s that easy,” the spokesperson stated in an e-mail. “As quickly because the Division was notified {that a} organic male was enjoying on a ladies’ group in Broward County, we instructed the district to take speedy motion since it is a direct violation of Florida legislation.”
Monarch Excessive Faculty Principal James Cecil and an assistant principal, athletic director and knowledge administration technician had been recognized as the workers relocated. A college athletic coach, who was engaged on a brief foundation, additionally had his providers paused amid the investigation, the varsity district stated.
Throughout their demonstration on a faculty athletic subject, college students held indicators and chanted “trans lives matter” and “convey again Cecil,” according to NBC 6 South Florida, which captured aerial footage of the protest.
College students, talking with native media, shared their reactions to the volleyball group controversy.
“I don’t suppose it needs to be an issue sufficiently big so that you can have the varsity’s principal reassigned,” one pupil told WSVN. “On the finish of the day, that’s simply an extracurricular.”
“I don’t agree with that. He shouldn’t be allowed to play on the group,” one other pupil advised the outlet, referring to the transgender volleyball participant. “If he’s a organic boy, I don’t suppose he ought to play on the group.”
Secure Colleges South Florida, a neighborhood LGBTQ+ group for college students, referred to as the workers’ relocation an overreaction and a “obtrusive misjudgment.”
“The reassignment of college is a measure usually reserved for the gravest of infractions,” the group said in a statement. “We urgently name upon Broward Colleges to rethink their strategy to this matter.”
Cecil didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
Earlier this month, a federal courtroom dismissed a lawsuit filed by a Broward County highschool pupil’s household that challenged the Equity in Ladies’s Sports activities Act as unconstitutional.
The scholar, who was born male however is transgender, has been taking hormone blockers since age 11, and all through center faculty she performed on a faculty soccer group and in a leisure league for ladies, in accordance with the lawsuit. Underneath present legislation, nonetheless, she’s barred from collaborating at school sports activities that match her gender id.
The U.S. District Court docket for the Southern District of Florida ruled that the law doesn’t violate Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in training, or the U.S. Structure.
