A Florida school official who allowed her transgender daughter to play on her high school’s girls volleyball team was found by a school board on Tuesday to have violated state law but suspended her for 10 days, saying firing her was too harsh.
The Broward County School Board voted 5-4 to suspend without pay teacher Jessica Norton at Monarch High School, where her 16-year-old daughter played on the varsity volleyball team the past two seasons.
She will no longer be able to work as a computer information specialist and must be given a job with equal pay and responsibility.
The committee found that Norton’s actions violated the state’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which bars transgender women from participating in girls’ high school sports.
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state Legislature adopted the bill in 2021 over the objections of the Broward Commission.
“Our employees chose not to follow the law,” said Debbie Hixson, the company director who proposed the disciplinary action, but she added, “This was a first offense. We don’t fire people for a first offense.”
Norton, who was fired by the school in November after the violations were discovered and has since been placed on paid administrative leave, said the vote was a “wrong decision” but that it was better than being fired.
She said she wasn’t sure whether she would accept the punishment and return to work.
She wanted to discuss it with her daughter, who had left the school despite being class president and homecoming princess.
Maybe we could go home together, she said.
“I did nothing wrong. Nothing,” Norton said.
The treatment of transgender children has become a hot topic across the country in recent years.
Florida is one of at least 25 states that have adopted bans on gender-affirming care for minors, and one of at least 24 states that have adopted laws banning transgender women and girls from certain female and girls’ sports.
The Nortons are plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit seeking to block the Florida law because it violates their daughter’s civil rights. The case is pending.
During an hour-long debate on Tuesday, Hixson proposed the punishment for Norton after voting against an earlier motion to suspend him for five days with no change in his duties.
She said it wasn’t tough enough. The bill was defeated by a 5-4 vote.
But Mr Hixson argued that firing Mr Norton was too harsh on a seven-year staff member who had earned a good reputation among students and a caring reputation.
“This isn’t about someone abusing or hurting a child,” Hixson said. “This is really about not following the law.”
Still, Hixson said Norton put the district in a difficult legal position by falsely representing his child as born a girl on his state athletic eligibility application.
The Florida Athletic Association fined the Monarchs $16,500 and placed them on probation for violating the law, and the district could be sued under it if another student claims Norton’s daughter caused him to be kicked off the volleyball team and lose a scholarship opportunity.
Hixson said she wanted Norton removed from her computer information specialist position because she felt that in that position she might have known about other transgender students playing girls’ sports but not reported them to administrators.
“This puts us as a school district in a bad situation,” Hixson said.
The other four who voted in favor believed a five-day suspension or no punishment would be appropriate, but agreed to a 10-day suspension as a compromise.
They pointed to previous three-, five- and 10-day suspensions given to staff who physically or verbally abused students, and argued that this was evidence that Norton was being punished too harshly.
“I think this case is unique,” commissioner Allen Zeman said. “I can correctly infer that there were problems with how we (the commission) handled it. I can correctly infer that we violated rules and laws. But I think it’s important to find a solution that’s consistent with other cases.”
At least three board members supported Superintendent Howard Hepburn’s recommendation that Norton be fired for knowingly violating the law.
Hepburn ignored the committee’s recommendation to suspend Norton for 10 days.
Councillor Torrey Alston said he believed previous suspensions cited by Norton’s supporters were too lenient and should not preclude him from being fired.
He said the board was sending a message that it would have a “zero tolerance” for employees who violate the law simply because they don’t agree with it.
“I have zero tolerance for violations of the law,” Alston said.
Norton and her husband walked out of the meeting in anger after member Brenda Pham repeatedly referred to her child as a boy.
Pham argued that while the Fairness Act only provides for civil penalties targeted at non-compliant schools, Norton should face criminal charges.
She likened Norton to a parent who gives a false address to get their child into a better school, a crime under Florida law.
Pham said she supports the Fairness Act because it would protect biological girls from having to compete with transgender girls who may be bigger and stronger.
Norton and her supporters claim her daughter has been taking puberty-suppressing drugs and estrogen for years and that she has no physical advantage over her teammates or opposing teams.
“This isn’t a question about her son or her family, it’s about what she did as an employee and how she hurt others,” Pham said. She later denied misrepresenting the gender of Norton’s child, saying she had simply quoted from a newspaper article.
After the meeting, Norton said Pham had deliberately misidentified the baby’s gender to upset her.
“It’s worked. I don’t think school board members should be misgendering kids,” Norton said. “It’s horrible.”
