The state of Maine filed a lawsuit Monday against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins for revoking funding after the state refused to comply with the Trump administration’s directive banning men from competing in women’s sports.
The lawsuit claims the USDA’s revocation of funding is “blatantly unlawful” and violates the Administrative Procedure Act for “freezing federal funds allocated to Maine to feed schoolchildren.” Funding from the USDA was cut on April 2 after Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills got into a public spat with President Donald Trump during which the governor declined to comply with Trump’s ban on men in women’s sports.
“The Secretary claimed that she was taking this action because the State of Maine is allegedly violating Title IX of the Civil Rights Law of 1964 by permitting transgender girls and women to participate in girls’ and women’s school sports,” the lawsuit reads. “The Secretary provided no legal basis for her interpretation of Title IX, and her interpretation is wrong. Indeed, several federal courts have held that Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause require schools to permit transgender girls and women to play on girls’ and women’s teams.”
The USDA stated the funding freeze will only apply to “certain administrative and technological functions in schools” and would “not impact federal feeding programs or direct assistance.”
“This is only the beginning, though you are free to end it at any time by protecting women and girls in compliance with federal law,” USDA’s letter to Mills reads.
Mills’ office and Maine’s Attorney General’s office did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
The USDA opened an investigation into Maine’s education department on Feb. 22, the day after the fiery exchange between Trump and Mills, to review its compliance with Title IX, which protects women from discrimination. The U.S. Department of Education (ED) on March 19 found the state’s education department “has policies and practices that are in violation of Title IX.” On April 2, the USDA announced it had frozen federal funding “for certain Maine educational programs.”
“The outcome of [the Office of Civil Rights’] investigation of [the Maine Department of Education] confirms that it has violated federal antidiscrimination law by allowing boys to compete in girls’ sports and boys to occupy girls’ intimate facilities,” Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for Civil Rights at the department said in a statement at the time. “Today’s findings and proposed resolution agreement demonstrate to MDOE and any other entity receiving federal funding that the Trump Administration will not tolerate unlawful discrimination against girls and women. If Maine does not swiftly and completely come into compliance with Title IX, we will initiate the process to limit MDOE’s access to federal funding.”
The department sent a letter to the state threatening it with “imminent enforcement action” if it did not agree to a resolution plan within ten days.
The USDA also temporarily paused funding to the entire University of Maine System (UMS) on March 10 but announced the system was in compliance with federal law on March 19.
Trump signed an executive order on Feb. 5 banning men from competing in women’s sports and subsequently demanded the NCAA restore female records taken by male competitors. Several female athletes have been injured after being forced to compete against males, such as 19-year-old Payton McNabb, who suffered a traumatic brain injury after a male athlete claiming to be a transgender female spiked a volleyball onto her head.
During his presidency, former President Joe Biden attempted to rewrite Title IX, a rule meant to protect women from discrimination, to include protections for transgender individuals, which was widely criticized by Republican-led states and faced numerous legal challenges. The rule was challenged and eventually dropped.
Under Biden’s rule, the USDA attempted to weaponize school lunch funding in an attempt to force states to comply, though the move was met with several legal challenges.
Maine’s Department of Education and the USDA did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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