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President Donald Trump’s Department of Education (DOE) on Friday announced that it has begun the process of cutting federal K-12 funding to Maine, as the Democrat-run state continues to allow transgender-identifying males on female sports teams.
DOE is also referring its Title IX investigation of the state to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for “further enforcement action,” the department said. DOE said its actions are a “direct result” of the Maine Department of Education’s (MDOE) continued refusal to comply with Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on sex in education programs and activities receiving federal funding.
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“The Department has given Maine every opportunity to come into compliance with Title IX, but the state’s leaders have stubbornly refused to do so, choosing instead to prioritize an extremist ideological agenda over their students’ safety, privacy, and dignity,” said Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor.
“The Maine Department of Education will now have to defend its discriminatory practices before a Department administrative law judge and in a federal court against the Justice Department,” Trainor continued. “Governor Mills would have done well to adhere to the wisdom embedded in the old idiom — be careful what you wish for. Now she will see the Trump Administration in court.”
President Trump’s executive order on “Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports” was created to protect female student athletes from having “to compete with or against or having to appear unclothed before males.” The order also mandates each federal department to “review grants to education programs and, where appropriate, rescind funding to programs that fail to comply with the policy established in this order,” which protects women “as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.”
Following Trump’s order, Maine officials publicly said they would not comply, siding with transgender-identifying males over women and girls and citing state law allowing students to play on teams that match their “gender identity.”
Then a transgender-identifying boy claimed the victory in the Maine Class B championship for the Greely High School girls’ track and field team in February.
President Trump and Gov. Mills had a public spat on February 20, during which he said, at the Republican Governor’s Association dinner, that Maine is at risk of losing federal funding if the state continues to allow males to play on female sports teams.
“We are the federal law. You better do it, because you’re not gonna get any federal funding if you don’t… your population also doesn’t want men in women’s sports,” Trump said. “You better comply, or you’re not getting any federal funding.”
“See you in court,” Mills replied.
WATCH — President Trump: Having Women Compete with Trans Athletes Is “Demeaning to Women”:
“Good. See you in court, that should be a real easy one,” Trump fired back. “Enjoy your life after, governor. I don’t think you’ll be in elected office.”
Both the Department of Education (DOE) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) subsequently launched investigations into the state and ultimately found the Maine Department of Education (MDOE) and other entities in violation of Title IX.
On Friday, Maine responded to a letter from the DOE and refused to sign a resolution agreeing to comply with the Trump administration’s interpretation of Title IX. The state told the department: “We agree that we are an an impasse.”
“Nothing in Title IX or its implementing regulations prohibits schools from allowing transgender girls and women to participate on girls’ and women’s sports teams,” the letter reads.
