The Trump administration officially put the Maine Department of Education on notice that it is violating federal civil rights law by continuing to allow males to compete in female sports. The announcement comes after President Donald Trump and Maine Governor Janet Mills sparred over the issue last month.
In a four-page letter, the Department of Health and Human Service’s Office for Civil Rights informed Mills and the state’s attorney general that Maine is in violation of Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in educational programs or activities, and that federal funding is in jeopardy. The letter notes more than $700,000 in federal funding the state’s education department receives.
The Maine Department of Education “violates Title IX by denying female student athletes in the state of Maine an equal opportunity to participate in, and obtain benefits of participation, ‘in any interscholastic, intercollegiate, club or intramural athletics’ offered by the state by allowing male athletes to compete against female athletes in current and future athletic events,” the letter states. “Male athletes, by comparison, are not subject to heightened safety or competitive concerns, which only affect females.”
The letter adds that failure to comply with federal Title IX requirements could lead to a referral to the Department of Justice.
The letter, first reported this week, was dated February 25, just days after Trump and Mills had a combative exchange during a White House event over her state’s refusal to abide by his executive order barring men from competing in women’s sports. During a White House governors meeting on February 21, Trump asked Mills if Maine would abide by federal law when it comes to protecting female sports. Mills responded that she is “complying with state and federal laws.”
“We are the federal law,” Trump shot back, adding that Maine better abide by his executive order “because you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t.”
“See you in court,” Mills told the president.
In recent weeks, Maine has become a focal point in the ongoing national debate about transgender issues in schools. In late February, Maine Democrats censured Republican State Representative Laurel Libby after she made a Facebook post highlighting a male high-school pole vaulter who placed fifth in a boys’ competition last year and then won the girls’ state championship this year. The Office of Civil Rights letter notes that case involving Greely High School, as well as another case involving a male skier at Maine Coast Waldorf School who was allowed to compete in a female competition.
Mills “and Maine’s Democrat Majority are playing a game of chicken (that they know they’ll lose), with hundreds of millions in federal funding on the line,” Libby wrote on X Wednesday.
In addition to the debate over transgender sports participation, new reporting from Parents Defending Education found that at least 57 Maine school districts have policies that allow staff to keep parents in the dark if their child seeks to socially transition to another gender in school and seeks to use restrooms and locker rooms of the opposite sex. Parents Defending Education is a nonprofit aimed at combatting classroom indoctrination and activist agendas in U.S. schools.
“The issue with boys in girls’ sports is symptomatic of the larger issue, and that is that the Augusta Democrats have been passing an aggressive, progressive, woke agenda over the last number of years,” including “making huge steps towards things like keeping secrets from parents,” Libby told National Review this week.
Maine’s state government is all-in on the side of transgender activists. The state’s Human Rights Act was amended in 2021 to include gender identity as a protected class against discrimination. In 2016, the Maine Human Rights Commission released a memo stating that schools must use their students’ preferred names and pronouns, allow them to use restrooms and locker rooms consistent with their gender identity, and allow them to compete on sports teams consistent with their gender identity.
After Trump issued his executive order barring males from competing in female sports, Mike Burnham, executive director of the Maine Principals’ Association, said it is in conflict with the state’s Human Rights Act, “and the Maine Principal’s Association will continue to follow state law as it pertains to gender identity.”