Caitlin Clark was punched in the throat during a WNBA game and the referees didn't call a foul.
Now Florida's attorney general just told the league what happens when that logic reaches a prosecutor's desk.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier watched the video and reached for two words the WNBA never expected to hear from a state prosecutor.
Florida AG James Uthmeier Threatens Assault and Battery Charges Over DiJonai Carrington Foul
Saturday in Chicago, Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham drove the lane on a fast break, went up for a layup, and Chicago Sky guard DiJonai Carrington – mid-air, arm swinging down across the face and neck – sent her crashing to the floor without being able to break her fall.
Officials upgraded the foul from a flagrant 1 to a flagrant 2 on review. Carrington was ejected.
Then she grabbed her phone.
From the locker room, Carrington posted "WHITE PRIVILEGE" on Threads, tagging the Indiana Fever directly.
Uthmeier had already seen enough. He fired back within hours on X.
"The WNBA knows better than to play games down here in Florida," Uthmeier wrote, "because I'll be charging people with assault."
He followed up a day later after Fox News amplified the post: "I should probably clarify … assault and battery."
In an appearance on Newsmax's The Record With Greta Van Susteren, Uthmeier didn't back down an inch.
"We've had multiple examples where somebody is being kneed or elbowed in the throat on the ground when there's an effort to go for the head and neck and not even make an attempt at the rim or ball," Uthmeier said. "These are assaults and batteries. There's just no other way around it."
He was direct about what the league's slap-on-the-wrist penalties actually communicate.
"If you hit somebody in the jugular and all they get is a free throw out of it, or you got to sit out a quarter, that is not right," Uthmeier said. "There needs to be accountability."
WNBA Violence Against Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham Triggers DOJ Warning
This is not a one-game story.
In June, Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas drove her closed fist into Caitlin Clark's throat during a scramble, and no foul was called. The league retroactively suspended Thomas one game — one game for a closed-fist shot to the throat.
Congress put the league on notice. Eleven members of the House Republican Study Committee sent WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert a letter demanding answers about what they called "repeated acts of physical hostility and violence" toward Clark, with a response deadline of July 24.
Committee Chairman Rep. August Pfluger warned in writing that if the league's response fell short, lawmakers would support federal investigations by the DOJ and EEOC into potential civil rights violations.
The WNBA never publicly responded to the letter.
The pattern runs deeper than 2026. In the 2024 season, Clark absorbed six flagrant fouls – a statistical anomaly so severe that the probability of it happening by chance was calculated at roughly 1 in 100,000. The majority came from Carrington's former team, the Chicago Sky.
Carrington herself was flagged for a hard foul on a Minnesota Lynx forward during the 2025 season, prompting analyst Jason Whitlock to warn publicly that she was going to seriously injure someone if the league didn't intervene.
The league did not intervene.
White Privilege Post and WNBA Accountability: Why Florida Is Drawing a National Line
Florida has no WNBA team. Uthmeier knows it. The left-wing media mocked him for that.
The mockery misses what Uthmeier is actually arguing: when an athlete deliberately goes for a competitor's head and neck with no play on the ball, she has not committed a sports infraction — she has committed a crime, and the fact that it happened inside a women's basketball arena does not change the criminal code.
Cunningham got there faster. After the game, she shut down Carrington's race claim herself.
"Last year, I did the same thing and I got kicked out," Cunningham said. "And I deserved to be kicked out. There's no reason even to play that card."
Uthmeier tied the violence to the WNBA's broader credibility collapse – a league that cannot define what a woman is, refuses to protect its players from premeditated physical attacks, and labels its biggest cultural flashpoints "complex and nuanced."
"In Florida, we're always going to fight for the right thing," he said.
The WNBA's answer to that is to schedule zero games in Florida and hope the moment passes. It won't.
When an attorney general of a major American state puts "assault and battery" and "women's basketball game" in the same sentence, a free throw is no longer an adequate response.
Sources:
- Sam Barron, "Florida AG James Uthmeier to Newsmax: WNBA Needs Accountability," Newsmax, August 10, 2026.
- "Florida AG warns WNBA: 'I'll be charging people with assault' over on-court violence," FL Voice News, August 10, 2026.
- "Sky's DiJonai Carrington ejected after hard foul on Fever's Sophie Cunningham," CBS Sports, August 8, 2026.
- "Caitlin Clark's treatment in the WNBA faces fresh scrutiny after delayed WNBA response," Just the News, July 2, 2026.
- "Congress sends letter to WNBA regarding fouls against Caitlin Clark," NBC Chicago, July 10, 2026.
- "WNBA media defends DiJonai Carrington after dangerous Sophie Cunningham hit reveals glaring bias," OutKick/Fox News, August 9, 2026.
