Authorities said Donna Adelson, 73, was arrested Monday night as she and her husband were about to use one-way tickets to board a flight to Dubai and Vietnam, countries that do not have an extradition treaty with the United States. She is charged with arranging the 2014 murder of Florida State University law professor Daniel Markel, who was shot in the head inside his Tallahassee garage.

Leon County State Attorney Jack Campbell said in a Tuesday phone interview that while he believes his prosecutors already had enough evidence to convict Adelson before Monday, plans for her arrest had to be accelerated when investigators learned of her plans to leave the country.

“It was going to be complicated and really difficult trying to bring them back, depending on where they ended up in the world,” Campbell said. “The arrest was not just based on the flight, but that played a part in the timing.”

Adelson was being held Tuesday at the Miami-Dade County Jail without bail pending her transfer to Tallahassee. Jail records do not show if she has an attorney./ She has long denied involvement in the killing.

Her son, Dr. Charlie Adelson, was convicted last week of arranging Markel’s shooting through a girlfriend, Katie Magbanua. She employed her ex-husband and his friend, both members of the notorious Latin Kings gang, to murder Markel, 41.

Magbanua and her ex-husband, Sigfredo Garcia, are serving life sentences after being convicted earlier of first-degree murder. His friend, Luis Rivera, is serving a 19-year sentence after pleading guilty to second-degree murder and testifying against the others.

Charlie Adelson, 47, faces a mandatory life term when sentenced next month.

Markel had been involved in a bitter custody battle with his ex-wife, lawyer Wendi Adelson, and had gotten a court order barring her move from Tallahassee back to South Florida with their two young sons.

Authorities say the Adelsons offered Markel $1 million to let his ex-wife and sons move, but when he refused Charlie Adelson and other members of the family began plotting his death.

During his trial, it was shown that Charlie Adelson paid Magbanua $138,000, which she split with the killers, and the family then gave her a no-show job at their dental practice and other payments totaling more than $56,000. Charlie Adelson also gave her a used Lexus.

Wendi Adelson and her father, dentist Harvey Adelson, have not been charged, but Campbell said the investigation remains open. They have denied involvement.

Markel was shot while parking in his garage after he dropped his sons off at daycare and visited the gym.

The Adelsons immediately became suspects in Markel’s slaying after Wendi Adelson told detectives that the killing could have been arranged on her behalf, saying her parents were “very angry at Markel.” She told them that her brother had joked about hiring a hit man to kill Markel as a divorce gift, but he bought her a TV instead.

Still, the investigation involving local and state agencies and the FBI proceeded slowly.

Investigators were able to track phone records showing numerous calls between Charlie Adelson and Magbanua, her and the killers and Charlie Adelson, his mother and his sister in the hours before and shortly after the killing as well as large monetary transactions between the family and Magbanua. Garcia and Rivera were then linked to a rented Toyota Prius the killers used.

In 2016, an FBI agent, impersonating an extortionist, approached Donna Adelson outside her home and demanded $5,000 to not turn information about the slaying over to investigators. The ruse had been concocted in hopes that it would trigger a reaction from the Adelsons.

She contacted her son, telling him they needed to discuss “some paperwork” and that “you probably have a general idea what I’m talking about.” They led to several calls and meetings between her and her son.

Charlie Adelson was arrested last year after technicians enhanced a recording made of him and Magbanua inside a Mexican restaurant in 2016 while they were under surveillance discussing the extortion attempt.

In the conversation, Adelson told Magbanua that she would need to meet with the extortionist and agree to a one-time payment.

He also told her he wasn’t worried about being arrested, but if he thought police had any evidence proving the family orchestrated the slaying, “we would have already gone to the airport.”

Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker issued a ruling that rejected arguments by the university that it should not have to cover the fees. Walker awarded $372,219 in fees to attorneys from two firms, while also tacking on $1,575 in costs.

Political science professors Sharon Austin, Michael McDonald and Daniel Smith filed the lawsuit in 2021 after university officials denied their requests to serve as witnesses for groups fighting a new state elections approved by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the GOP-controlled Legislature. In denying the professors’ requests, university officials said going against the executive branch of the state government was “adverse” to the school’s interests.

The case drew widespread attention, and the university walked back the decision on the professors’ testimony. Then-university President Kent Fuchs said they would be allowed to be paid to testify if they did so on their own time and did not use university resources.

Walker based the decision in part on a preliminary injunction that he issued in January 2022, finding that the university had violated the professors’ First Amendment rights. The university appealed, and the case was ultimately dismissed this year after university officials adopted a revised policy about the disputed issues.

“Plaintiffs received enduring relief in the form of their preliminary injunction, followed by a substantial rule change that eliminated the constitutional issue that prompted plaintiffs to bring this case to vindicate their First Amendment rights in the first place,” Walker wrote last week. “In this way, the case undoubtedly served a public purpose.”

The plaintiffs were represented by attorneys from the Debevoise & Plimpton LLP and Donnelly + Gross LLP law firms.

“We’re so excited about this high school,” said Maria Salamanca, the Orange County School Board member who represents the district that includes both Innovation and Lake Nona, as the board approved the name at its Thursday night meeting.

Innovation High will be the 23rd traditional high school in Orange County Public Schools. It is under construction in south Orange in the Meridian Parks neighborhood east of Orlando International Airport.

That part of the county is one of the fastest growing, and Lake Nona High now has more than 4,500 students on a campus built for 2,800, making it one of the largest high schools in Florida.

The new school will sit on 61 acres and feature a similar design to many OCPS high schools, with buildings constructed around a courtyard and a “secure single entry,” according to OCPS. It will include classrooms, science labs, an auditorium, space for the arts, career and technical programs and athletic facilities and is meant to accommodate about 3,200 students.

OCPS surveyed students, parents, staff and community members about a name for the school. The top three suggestions were Innovation, Meridian Parks and Storey Park, the last two reflecting the neighborhood and nearby development.

But Salamanca said Innovation was more inspiring and inclusive. “We want a name that represents not just one neighborhood … but something that everyone can stand behind,” she aid. “I would love for it to be Innovation High School, and that is what the community has also expressed.”

The school board voted unanimously to name it Innovation High. The new school’s mascot will be the bulls, and its colors crimson, black and white.

Ray Rodrigues, who heads the State University System, said Thursday that campus groups thought to be chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine are actually “not chartered or under the headship” of the national organization.

Rodrigues, working with Gov. Ron DeSantis, had targeted student groups at the University of Florida and the University of South Florida, saying in a recent letter that their affiliation with the national group aligned them with the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.

But Rodrigues said both schools have since obtained legal opinions raising concerns about “potential personal liability for university actors” who were tasked with disbanding the UF and USF groups.

With the original plan on hold, Rodrigues said he is seeking outside legal advice and working with the universities to elicit statements from the student groups. He said the statements would affirm that the groups “reject violence,” “reject that they are part of the Hamas movement,” and pledge “that they will follow the law.”

His comments came as he addressed the university system Board of Governors that met at UCF in Orlando this week.

Leaders for the student groups at UF and USF did not respond to requests for comment.

Groups including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression had denounced the original plan, citing concerns over free speech. Rodrigues announced that plan on Oct. 24, saying that a “tool kit” released by Students for Justice in Palestine described the Hamas attack on Israel as “the resistance” and “unequivocally states: ‘Palestinian students in exile are PART of this movement, not in solidarity with this movement.’” He said that violated a Florida law against giving “material support” to terrorism.

DeSantis touted having disbanded the groups during the Republican presidential primary debate Wednesday night in Miami. Two of his rivals put forth similar stances, while one pushed back.

U.S. Senator Tim Scott reminded university presidents that “federal funding is a privilege not a right,” and said any campus that “allows students to encourage terrorism, mass murder and genocide” should lose funding.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said university leaders should treat the groups as they would the Ku Klux Klan.

However, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy said disbanding the groups would amount to censorship.

“When they are siding with Hamas over Israel, they are fools,” Ramaswamy said. “But I also want to caution here if we go in the direction of … telling student groups to disband, mark my words: Soon they say if you question a vaccine and its side effects, you are a bio-terrorist. Soon they will say that if you show up at a school board meeting you’re a domestic terrorist. … We don’t quash this with censorship.”

Rodrigues said he would provide an update to the Board of Governors at a later date.

The crowd at the meeting of the Florida Board of Governors, which oversees the state university system, spilled out of the chambers into a hallway and overflow room at the University of Central Florida.

Many were there to speak on proposed rule changes prompted by a new state law prohibiting universities from funding diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

But the panel set a 15-minute time limit for public comment, which Chair Brian Lamb said was customary. About a dozen people spoke before the allotted time expired. After the board cut off the public comment period, people waiting outside the meeting room started chanting, “Let us speak!”

The board granted initial approval to the proposal, which is expected to come back for a final vote at the board’s next meeting in January.

DeSantis described diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives as “an attempt to impose orthodoxy on the university,” during a signing ceremony for the bill earlier this year.

“This has basically been used as a veneer to impose an ideological agenda, and that is wrong,” he said.

The law was part of a broader push by Gov. Ron DeSantis to overhaul higher education in Florida. The most sweeping changes have taken place at New College of Florida, the state’s small liberal arts college, where DeSantis replaced trustees with conservative activists, who appointed former House Speaker Richard Corcoran as president and have sought to transform the campus into a conservative stronghold.

The changes have drawn criticism from faculty, students and others in the university system, who say that diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives are needed to ensure campuses are welcoming and accessible to people from a wide range of backgrounds. Many also see DeSantis’  efforts to revamp higher education as an intrusion into the administration of university campuses.

Those who were able to speak during the meeting included UCF student Logan Rubenstein, who said he feared the new rule would bar groups such as College Democrats and College Republicans, chill speech on campuses and discourage applications from out-of-state students.

“It would be detrimental to a healthy democracy,” he said.

Grace Castelin, who also attends UCF, urged board members to address challenges facing the state’s students, including paying for tuition and keeping up with increasing housing costs instead of “imaginary problems.”

Today’s students value equity and inclusion, she said, and state leaders should honor that.

“Please do not underestimate the impact of your decisions today because they will lead Florida to gradual irreversible changes into a new era of suppression, intimidation and censorship,” said Castelin, who said she was speaking on behalf of UCF’s NAACP chapter.

While board members quickly approved the initial reading of the rule with little discussion, the board’s student representative asked his colleagues to consider whether the change would prohibit college leaders from using their platforms to speak on important social issues.

Jack Hitchcock, the student body president at FSU, pointed to a recent column by Corcoran that ran in the Wall Street Journal, where he offered free tuition at New College to students at Harvard University after reports of anti-Semitism on the Ivy League campus.

“Is this something that would block that type of speech from university administrators? And if it would, I think that is worth a second look because I think this type of speech is necessary,” Hitchcock said.

Board member Alan Levine reminded him that the group was taking up the rule changes in response to a state law. Board members should listen to concerns and take them into consideration before the next meeting, he added.

“This is just the starting point in this process,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

A Senate education committee this week unveiled the proposal in a 50-page document that aims to “reduce regulations on public schools.” Senate President Kathleen Passidomo said in a memo to senators that the document includes ideas that are “bold,” “controversial” and, she conceded, might “not make it across the finish line.”

Among the most notable suggestions are eliminating requirements that third graders pass the state reading test or face being held back and high schoolers pass language arts and algebra exams to graduate. Both rules have been embedded in Florida law for more than 20 years.

The third-grade rule was part of former Gov. Jeb Bush’s A+ Plan for education that he signed into law in 1999. Florida has had an exit test for high school graduation since 1995, but it became tougher under the Bush administration’s accountability rules.

The two rules have been long-criticized by those who think high-stakes tests are punitive and should not be used for key academic decisions like promotion and graduation. Nearly 22,000 third graders were not promoted in 2022, according to data from the Florida Department of Education.

But the rules also have been praised as accountability measures that have helped improve the academic performance of Florida’s public school students. In 1998, for example, 47% of Florida’s fourth graders scored “below basic” on a national reading test and less than 25% were proficient or better.

By 2022, Florida was among the top 10 states in fourth-grade reading, with less than 30% “below basic” and 39% at proficient or above.

In a memo to senators, Passidomo said she wanted to “make certain we do not lose one inch of the accountability measures this Legislature has instituted over the last thirty years.”

But this year Florida embraced school choice, passing legislation (HB 1) that expanded school voucher programs so that all students are eligible for a state scholarship to private school.

That makes some public school accountability laws unnecessary, she wrote.

“I think we also need to recognize with HB 1, our role is changing,” she said. “Parents are more involved than ever before. Parents are the ultimate arbiter of performance. Parents will hold neighborhood schools, charter schools, and private schools accountable with their voices and their feet.”

Private schools that take state vouchers do not have to give their students state tests or use test scores to make promotion and graduation decisions.

Sen. Corey Simon, R- Tallahassee, said during a committee meeting Tuesday that eliminating the third-grade requirement would give Florida’s school districts “greater authority to determine students’ progression” and that getting rid of the high school testing rule would align Florida with about 30 other states that do not tie a diploma to passing exams.

The proposals would also push public schools to offer help to struggling readers sooner, he said, requiring them to “expand support and intervention in the early grades.”

Simon is chair of the Senate’s education committee, which will consider legislation on the proposals at a meeting next week.

HB 1, which Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law in March, required the Florida Department of Education to review public school regulations with the aim of reducing bureaucratic rules. It asked educators and the public for their thoughts, receiving about 4,000 comments.

The department recommended numerous parts of the state education code for revision but did not suggest altering the rules on testing that the Senate proposed. Its suggestions included dropping duplicative reports and nixing state rules already covered by federal laws, for example.

“The Department did not include in our recommendation any statutory revisions or repeals that could potentially weaken our best in the nation accountability system or limit parents’ rights,” it wrote in its Nov. 1 report to the Senate.

A House panel this week also reviewed the department’s recommendations but, unlike the Senate, it did not discuss additional proposals beyond what the education department suggested.

Bill Montford, a former state senator who runs Florida’s school superintendent association, told the Senate its package of proposals would be welcomed by public school administrators as “music to their ears.”

The proposals would remove “red tape” and allow traditional, neighborhood public schools, “highly successful and the preferred choice of most of our families,” to operate on the same footing as private schools now accepting publicly funded vouchers, he said.

“Now is the time to make those bold and sometimes controversial decisions that will ensure a level playing field for all choices parents will have,” Montford added.

Sue Woltanski, a Monroe County School Board member and longtime critic of Florida’s accountability program, said she and other parents who think high-stakes testing, and all the time spent prepping for those exams, is “sucking the joy out of their kids’ classrooms” need to let lawmakers know they would support the change.

“This is a really big lift and people need to let their legislators know that the deregulation of public schools should be at the top of everyone’s list,” Woltanski said.

Public schools could still give tests, but without those rules, they would not have to insist third graders repeat the grade or high school students lose electives to take remedial reading and math classes to help them pass the exams, she said. Instead, educators and parents could make those decisions based on what’s best for individual students.

“There has not been a real conversation in a decade,” she added, “and I hope everyone will get involved in this conversation because it’s much, much needed.”

Cindy Hamilton, with the Florida Opt Out Network, a group opposed to high-stakes standardized tests, said it was too soon to celebrate.

“After decades of punitive consequences attached to testing, and the value placed on this type of accountability, we will remain skeptical,” she wrote in an email. “For years Florida students have been promised changes that have not come to fruition.”

A representative from Bush’s Foundation for Florida’s Future, which continues to push for the accountability measures he backed when in office, could not be reached for comment Thursday.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — She refused to ban books, many of them about racism and the experiences of LGBTQ+ people. And for that, Suzette Baker was fired as a library director in a rural county in central Texas.

“I’m kind of persona non grata around here,” said Baker, who had headed the Kingsland, Texas, library system until she refused to take down a prominent display of several books people had sought to ban over the years.

Now, Baker is fighting back. She and two other librarians who were similarly fired have filed workplace discrimination claims with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. And as culture war battles to keep certain books from children and teens put public and school libraries increasingly under pressure, their goal is redemption and, where possible, eventual reinstatement.

So far, it’s a wait-and-see whether the claims will succeed — and set new precedent — in the struggle between teachers and librarians around the country who oppose book bans and conservative activists who say some books are inappropriate for young minds.

The fight has involved a record number of book-banning efforts; some libraries cutting ties with the American Library Association, which opposes book bans; and even attempts to prosecute librarians for allowing children to access books some consider too graphic.

At least one terminated librarian has gained a measure of success.

Brooky Parks, who was fired for standing up for programs on anti-racism and LGBTQ+ stories she organized for teens at the Erie Community Library north of Denver, won a $250,000 settlement in September. Reached through the Colorado Civil Rights Division, the settlement requires her former employer to give librarians more say in decisions involving library programs.

Parks’ settlement with the High Plains Library District capped a stressful eight-month period without work, when community donations helped her avoid losing her home. And it will likely resolve Parks’ claim with the EEOC, said her attorney, Iris Halper, who represents the three librarians.

“I just wasn’t going to back down from it. It was just the right thing to do,” said Parks, now a librarian at the University of Denver.

After her firing in 2022, Baker filed an EEOC claim against her employer, the Llano County Library System in Kingsland, Texas. And in September 2023, Terri Lesley, executive director of the Campbell County Public Library System in Gillette, Wyoming, filed a claim over her firing last summer.

Halpern, with the Denver firm Rathod Mohamedbhai, compared the wrongful termination claims to civil rights era legal battles.

“It is honestly sad that we’ve gotten to this point. But history is a constant struggle and we have to learn from our past,” she said.

The 1964 Civil Right Act established the EEOC to enforce laws against workplace discrimination. One legal expert thinks the librarians might be able to prevail on the grounds that, under those laws, employees may not be discriminated against for associating with certain classes of people.

“With any case, the devil can be in the details in terms of how the facts come out and what they can present. But these are definitely actionable claims,” said Rutgers University law professor David Lopez, a former EEOC general counsel.

An EEOC investigation can take over a year. After that, the EEOC may attempt to reach a settlement with the employer out of court, sue on the employee’s behalf or issue a letter saying the employee has grounds to sue on their own.

The librarians haven’t yet received an EEOC response and none is expected before the end of next year.

“I would love to be optimistic,” Baker said. “I know there are a lot of people in this community who are just absolutely behind the library being open and free and equal for all. And there’s a lot of people who aren’t. So it’s a hard, hard situation.”

EEOC spokesperson Victor Chen declined to comment on specific filings, adding “we can’t even confirm or deny we have these complaints.”

The county attorney offices and other representatives of the government officials who fired Parks, Baker and Lesley did not return phone and email messages seeking comment, or declined to comment.

At her Texas library, Baker displayed several books that have been targeted in recent book bans and a sign that read: “We put the ‘lit’ in literature” — a reference to a Tennessee pastor’s recent burning of books.

Baker was fired after refusing to take down the display and signs — the last straw after she resisted book banning in her own library.

In March, a federal judge ordered 17 books returned to Kingsland library shelves while a citizen lawsuit against book banning proceeded. The works ranged from children’s books to award-winning nonfiction, including “They Called Themselves the K.K.K: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group,” by Susan Campbell Bartoletti; and “It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex and Sexual Health,” by Robie Harris.

“Content-based restrictions on speech are presumptively unconstitutional and subject to strict scrutiny,” Texas U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman wrote in his March 30 ruling. He cited a 2015 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that barred communities from banning signs because of what they say.

The Llano County Commission considered but decided against closing the county’s three libraries in response to the ruling. Closing the libraries would have been eerily similar to the history across the U.S. of closing swimming pools rather than desegregating them, Halpern said.

Like Baker, Lesley had trouble finding work after being fired from the library system she directed in Gillette, Wyoming. Her dismissal followed two years of turmoil over challenges to the books available and library programs.

Some of the same county officials who opposed a transgender magician’s plans to perform at the library went on to join local residents in seeking to ban books, according to Lesley’s EEOC filing.

Baker and Lesley both were fired after local officials appointed new library board members willing to be more aggressive about pulling books.

“Our county commissioners appointed board members who were sympathetic to the people who wanted to remove the books. And it was a long dance to try to get it there. And in the end they had to fire me, I think, in order to be able to meet their goal,” Lesley said.

The Campbell County Commission skirted a deputy county attorney’s recommendation not to appoint past applicants for the board without re-interviewing them along with new candidates, according to Lesley’s EEOC claim.

“I saw this as a well-executed attack on the library by a group of citizens and elected officials. It was an attack on the LGBTQ+ community as well,” she said. “And it was an attack on the books.”

Amesty, a Republican who represents west Orange County and northern Osceola County, missed the Florida House’s special session Tuesday in Tallahassee to attend a tax hearing in Orlando. She was joined by more than a dozen supporters of Central Christian University who want a special magistrate to rule that the house in an upscale community near Windermere should be excused from paying its taxes this year.

Without that ruling, the university with a campus on North Hiawassee Road would face a 2023 tax bill of more than $25,000 on the five-bedroom pool home, according to the Orange County Property Appraiser. The university also has not paid its 2022 taxes on the house, the property appraiser’s website shows, and last year’s delinquent bill now stands at more than $18,200.

“We’re just asking the property appraiser’s office to be just and to follow clear guidance on the statute,” said Amesty, Central Christian’s vice president and a member of the university’s board of directors.

The property appraiser’s office in late June denied Central Christian’s exemption request and Tuesday urged the magistrate to rule in its favor. An attorney for that office said the unaccredited university did not qualify for a tax exemption on the home because it was being used solely as a residence for its president.

Central Christian appealed a decision denying the exemption, prompting Tuesday’s hearing before a special magistrate, Asima Azam, an Orlando attorney.

Azam listened to about an hour of testimony and then said she would issue her ruling within 20 days. Her recommendation then goes to the county’s Value Adjustment Board.

Central Christian purchased the house in Keene’s Pointe, a luxury community on the Butler Chain of Lakes featuring a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course, in March 2022. Amesty and her parents had been living there for more than a year by the time of the purchase, leasing it first, she said last year.

Carolina Amesty lived in the house during her successful 2022 campaign for the House and during her first legislative session earlier this year, voter registration records show. That living arrangement prompted controversy during her campaign and the unpaid tax bill was a part of an Orlando Sentinel investigation of Amesty published in August.

Amesty has declined to say why the university’s 2022 tax bill remains unpaid. Asked after the hearing why she was not in Tallahassee, Amesty declined to answer but said the Orlando Sentinel was always criticizing her.

Rep. Amesty leaves trail of falsehoods, unpaid taxes and bills, records show

The property appraiser’s office initially denied Central Christian’s request for an exemption because it said the house was not used exclusively for educational purposes as required by Florida law.

Ana Torres, general counsel for the property appraiser’s office, also said Tuesday the university does not meet the law’s definition of “educational institution” as required for a tax exemption.

She noted that the university must prove its eligibility for the exemption and that the use of the property as a residence for Central Christian’s president did not automatically relieve it of its tax burden.

“There has been no evidence of anything,” Torres said, “of any meetings conducted there from any group of the university, anything of that nature, and that is something that we do require to justify and substantiate an actual educational use of the property.”

Torres also noted that granting exemptions to some properties involves a “direct shift in tax burden” to other properties, so the rules of exemption should be interpreted “strictly.”

Jinnette Ruiz, an attorney for Central Christian, however, said Central Christian is licensed by the Florida Department of Education and that is sufficient to meet the standard of the tax exemption law.

In July, the university told the state it had 12 students in its state-licensed programs and about 150 in its religious programs that are not licensed.

Ruiz also argued that Florida courts have ruled that the phrase “exclusively for educational purposes” should be broadly interpreted and that a property “does not need to be used one hundred percent of the time for educational purposes” to be granted a property tax exemption.

Ruiz noted that Rollins College, whose Winter Park campus is in Orange County, has an exemption on its president’s on-campus house, and that the University of Miami in Miami-Dade County has one on its president’s house, which is several miles from its Coral Gables campus.

Amesty’s father, Juan, is the university’s president and founder. Juan Amesty, a Venezuelan immigrant, testified in Spanish that the house is used for university meetings, including gatherings with administrators from other universities.

Colleges often provide homes for their presidents, but they are typically on campus or close by, allowing the top executive to be part of college life and to host fundraising and other events for the college community, said Lloyd Mayer, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame whose expertise includes non-profit organizations and the intersection of election and tax laws.

Rollins’ Barker House, built on campus in 2004, for example, provides private living quarters on its second floor and space designed for public events on its first floor, according to the college.

But Mayer said that Central Christian’s president’s home is in a gated community – one that guests can access only by showing a pass to a guard – makes it harder to argue it is part of the university. The home is about 15 miles, and a 30-minute drive, away from Central Christian’s campus.

The Legislature went into a special session Monday. On Tuesday, the House voted to provide $25 million to boost security for Jewish day schools, increase aid for Hurricane Idalia victims and allow nearly 9,000 students with disabilities on a waiting list to get a state scholarship through Florida’s school voucher programs.

In a 39-page order dated Monday, U.S. District Judge Roy Altman said the law, dubbed as the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act and also known as SB 1028, does not violate the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution because its “sex-based classifications are substantially related to the state’s important interest in promoting women’s athletics.”

“Today, we were asked whether a law that separates public-school sports teams by biological sex violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” said Altman, an appointee of former President Donald Trump. ”We find that it does not.”

“The Plaintiff is right to say that the statute treats transgender girls differently from both cisgender girls and transgender boys,” the judge wrote. “Under the law, after all, biological females (whether cis or trans) can play on both girls’ and boys’ sports teams. Transgender girls, by contrast, considered male by birth, cannot play on girls’ sports teams.”

“But not all gender-based classifications violate the Equal Protection Clause,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the Washington-based Human Rights Campaign, which brought the case on the student’s behalf, said the organization’s litigation team “is actively working with the plaintiffs on potential next steps.”

The judge said the plaintiff, identified only as D.N., also failed to prove the law was inspired by “discriminatory animus.” And he denied another claim that the law violates Title IX, a federal statute that prohibits sex-based discrimination on the part of educational institutions that receive federal aid.

Altman had temporarily placed the case on hold until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit decided a case in St. John’s County involving the state’s transgender bathroom law. The entire court decided that Title IX’s reference to “sex” does not include “gender identity.”

The judge also threw out a claim by D.N. with prejudice that the law violates the due process right to privacy.

“The Plaintiff argues that the ‘Defendants’ enforcement of the law would require Plaintiff to disclose sensitive medical information that would otherwise not be available, including to third parties, parents and other students who might file claims under this law,” Altman said. “This potential injury — if we can call it that — is so speculative (and lies so far down a hypothetical chain of imaginary future events) that it cannot support D.N.’s Article III standing here.”

Door open to refile part of the suit

But the judge gave the teenager until Nov. 21 to file an amended complaint that shows how “Title IX prohibits the state from treating D.N., as a biological male, differently than biological females.” Altman also said D.N. could refile the equal protection claim to show “discriminatory animus.”

D.N.’s parents joined in the complaint as plaintiffs; they are listed only by their first names and last initials.

The lawsuit alleged that D.N. played soccer on the girls’ team in middle school, and that she wanted to play on the girls’ high school team. The suit alleged the law would prevent her from playing sports and “decimate her social network.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who was named as the lead defendant in the lawsuit, asserted when he signed the act in June 2021 that the “designation of separate sex-specific athletic teams or sports is necessary to promote equality of athletic opportunities, and the majority of Americans support this action.”

“Multiple polls have stated more than 60 percent of Americans believe that biological males should not be participating in women’s sports,” he said.

But the Broward School Board, in a public rebuke of the law, said after the bill’s signing that it would continue its support transgender athletes.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is warning U.S. schools and colleges that they must take immediate action to stop antisemitism and Islamophobia on their campuses, citing an “alarming rise” in threats and harassment.

In a Tuesday letter, the Education Department said there’s “renewed urgency” to fight discrimination against students during the Israel-Hamas war. The letter reminds schools of their legal duty to protect students and intervene to stop harassment that disrupts their education.

“The rise of reports of hate incidents on our college campuses in the wake of the Israel-Hamas conflict is deeply traumatic for students and should be alarming to all Americans,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement. “Antisemitism, Islamophobia and all other forms of hatred go against everything we stand for as a nation.”

Universities have faced mounting criticism over their response to the war and its reverberations at U.S. schools. Jewish and Muslim students on many campuses say too little is being done to keep them safe. Protests have sometimes turned violent, including at a recent demonstration at Tulane University, while threats of violence have upended campuses including Cornell University.

The Education Department letter offered few specifics on how colleges should respond, and it did little to answer questions about where to draw the line between political speech and harassment. Instead, it outlined schools’ broad duties under the Civil Rights Act.

It says schools must intervene to stop conduct that is “objectively offensive and is so severe or pervasive that it limits or denies a person’s ability to participate in or benefit from the recipient’s education program or activity.” It urged schools to “be vigilant in protecting your students’ rights.”

The Education Department investigates reports of civil rights violations at schools and universities. Institutions can face penalties up to a loss of federal money.

Meeting with a group of Jewish students from Baltimore colleges last week, Cardona said he was “appalled and horrified” by incidents of antisemitism on U.S. campuses. A White House official at the meeting noted that attacks on Arabs and Muslims have been on the rise too.

At the meeting, students called on Cardona to help colleges combat the type of casual antisemitism that they fear will escalate into violence.

Students at Towson University described a recent prayer gathering that was disrupted when other students wrote “(expletive) the Jews” on a nearby chalkboard. Online chat boards have been littered with antisemitic insults, they said, some singling out Jews on campus.

Makayla Bernstein, president of Towson Hillel, said the Education Department’s letter is a strong start but needs to go farther. She was hoping for clearer guidance to help colleges identify rhetoric or behavior that should be considered antisemitic.

“Leaders on our campus have been having a hard time knowing where the line is,” Bernstein said. Anything short of violence has been tolerated, she added, with other forms of antisemitism “falling through the cracks.”

“Hopefully our president will be reading this letter and realize that there are many students who are afraid to walk around campus right now,” she said.

The letter is valuable because it points students to a legal route to fight harassment and discrimination, said Steven Doctorman, a Jewish student at Johns Hopkins University. But more needs to be done to discourage harmful speech before it becomes commonplace, he said.

“It requires the school or the administration or even the federal government to really take a stand,” he said.

Nothing new is required of colleges in the letter, and it adds no clarity around thorny free speech questions. Still, it’s a reminder that colleges should be paying attention to the issue, said Jonathan Fansmith, who leads government relations for the American Council on Education, an association of university presidents.

He cautions against the idea of letting the federal government decide what phrases or rhetoric should be deemed acceptable.

“That is something that I think people rightfully would have a lot of concerns about,” he said. “It just never will be simple or straightforward.”

On many campuses, Muslim and Arab students say they also feel unsafe. At Yale University, “death to Palestine” was found written on a campus whiteboard last month. On Friday, an Arab Muslim student at Stanford University was injured in a hit-and-run that’s being investigated as a hate crime.

Abdulwahab Omira, the Stanford student, said the university waited six hours to issue a statement and played down the severity of the incident.

“The hours following the incident were agonizingly silent from the institution that I had trusted to be my safeguard,” he wrote in a statement.

Weeks of turmoil have tested university leaders who strive to balance students’ safety and speech rights. Many have issued broad statements condemning violence while allowing pro-Israel and pro-Palestine rallies that have sometimes roiled campuses.

The president of Brandeis University broke from the pack Monday, declaring in an op-ed that student groups “will lose their affiliations and privileges when they spew hate.” Brandeis is a secular college founded by the American Jewish community in 1948.

In his op-ed, President Ronald D. Liebowitz denounced rhetoric used by pro-Palestine demonstrators, saying colleges “cannot stop hate speech, but they can stop paying for it.” The school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine announced it had been de-recognized by Brandeis and forced to cancel an event.

The Education Department’s letter is one of several actions from the Biden administration to help colleges.

Federal law enforcement officials are working with campus police to assess threats, and the Education Department updated a federal complaint form to clarify that certain forms of antisemitism and Islamophobia are prohibited by federal law.

The Biden administration says it will take other steps as it unrolls its national strategy against antisemitism — an effort inspired by a 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. It’s also working on a new strategy to counter Islamophobia.

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The Associated Press education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content.