An Alaska high school swimmer’s disqualification by a referee who said her suit revealed too much of her buttocks was overturned late Tuesday night amid nationwide outrage over the decision, according to USA Today.
Breckynn Willis, a 17-year-old student at Anchorage’s Dimond High School, was told her 100-meter freestyle victory at a Friday meet had been disqualified because the referee saw “butt cheek touching butt cheek,” which they declared a “uniform violation.”
{mosads}On Tuesday, however, after the school appealed the decision, the Alaska School Activities Association (ASAA) said the disqualification was invalid because the referee “did not notify the coach prior to disqualifying the student,” USA Today reported.
“All team and individual points shall be restored to both the individual swimmer and the Dimond High School swim team,” the ASAA said in its statement.
The Anchorage School District, meanwhile, said the referee would be decertified and that Willis had been “targeted based solely on how a standard, school-issued uniform happened to fit the shape of her body.”
“We cannot tolerate discrimination of any kind, and certainly not based on body shape,” the district told the Anchorage Daily News.
The decision to disqualify Willis was widely condemned, with Lauren Langford, a swim coach at a nearby high school, speculating that Willis was possibly singled out as one of the few nonwhite athletes in the sport.
“Some will argue this has nothing to do with race, but when the same officials targeting these girls have been heard saying that so-and-so white girl also shows too much skin but has never been disqualified for a similar violation the racial facet of this issue cannot be ignored,” Langford wrote in a blog post Monday.