Maine is suing the Trump administration after the U.S. Department of Agriculture halted federal funds last week in response to the state’s refusal to bar male athletes from competing in women’s sports.
The federal lawsuit, filed Monday by the attorney general of Maine, Aaron Frey, is the first legal challenge to the Trump administration’s efforts to protect the sanctity of women’s sports and enforce Title IX compliance. By filing the suit, Maine is refusing to back down on the issue of transgender participation in female sports.
The Democratic attorney general insists in the lawsuit that schools are required by Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause to allow men to play on women’s sports teams, as upheld by several federal courts. While maintaining that Maine is not in violation of Title IX, he argues that the federal government is withholding federal funds that would have been allocated to after-school programming and nutrition programs for children in schools and child-care centers
“Under the banner of keeping children safe, the Trump administration is illegally withholding grant funds that go to keeping children fed,” Frey said in a statement.
“This is just another example where no law or consequence appears to restrain the administration as it seeks capitulation to its lawlessness. The President and his cabinet secretaries do not make the law and they are not above the law, and this action is necessary to remind the President that Maine will not be bullied into violating the law.”
Governor Janet Mills was made aware of the funding freeze in an April 2 letter written by USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins, who said the action would target “certain administrative and technological functions in schools.”
“You cannot openly violate federal law against discrimination in education and expect federal funding to continue unabated. Your defiance of federal law has cost your state, which is bound by Title IX in educational programming,” Rollins wrote. “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.”
In the letter, Rollins noted that the pause in funding would not affect federal nutrition programs in Maine or direct assistance to state residents. It was unclear how much money was frozen or which programs were affected.
The Maine Department of Education’s Child Nutrition Program apparently lost access to several sources of federal funding on April 3, the lawsuit alleges.
The litigation comes four days before the Department of Education is set to refer Maine’s noncompliance with federal law to the Department of Justice.
The USDA did not respond to National Review’s request for comment in response to Monday’s lawsuit.
In February, after President Donald Trump signed the order to prohibit men from competing in women’s sports across the nation, Governor Mills sparred with Trump at a White House event, telling him, “See you in court.”
Trump shot back, saying the potential court battle “should be a really easy one” for his administration.
Republican State Representative Laurel Libby, who has recently become an outspoken critic of Maine’s support for male athletes in women’s sports, offered a sharp rebuke of the new lawsuit.
“Maine is continuing to double down on discriminating against women and girls,” she posted on X, “and suing the Trump administration for the ‘right’ to do so and still receive federal funds.”
Last month, Libby filed her own federal lawsuit against Democratic House Speaker Ryan Fecteau after she was censured in February for posting on Facebook about a male high school pole vaulter who placed fifth in the boys’ competition last year and then won the girls’ state championship this year.