The Trump administration says Maine\u2019s education department violated federal law by allowing transgender athletes to participate in girls\u2019 and women\u2019s sports. <\/p>\n
The Department of Health and Human Services’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) notified Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) and state Attorney General Aaron Frey (D) in a letter<\/a> dated Feb. 25 that it had issued a \u201cnotice of violation\u201d against the state\u2019s education department for failing to comply with Title IX, the federal civil rights law prohibiting sex discrimination at schools and education programs that receive government funding. <\/p>\n The notice, first reported by the Bangor Daily News<\/a> on Wednesday, found that Maine\u2019s education department violated Title IX by denying girls in the state an equal opportunity to compete in school sports \u201cby allowing male athletes to compete against female athletes in current and future athletic events.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cMale athletes, by comparison, are not subject to heightened safety or competitive concerns, which only affect females. This lack of equal opportunity and fair competition constitutes a Title IX violation,\u201d wrote acting OCR Director Anthony F. Archeval. <\/p>\n A spokesperson for the OCR did not immediately return a request for comment. <\/p>\n The Maine Principals Association, which governs high school sports in the state, said last month it would not bar transgender student-athletes from competing on sports teams that match their gender identity, as an executive order<\/a> signed Feb. 5 by President Trump had directed. Mike Burnham, the organization\u2019s executive director, said the order conflicts with a state anti-discrimination law that includes protections for transgender people. <\/p>\n The OCR, in its letter to Mills and Frey, said Maine\u2019s education department had failed to ensure that public schools, which follow the policies set by the Principals Association, comply with federal nondiscrimination law. <\/p>\n The agency\u2019s finding came just four days after the federal Department of Education opened an investigation<\/a> into Maine\u2019s education department and a school district that allowed a transgender high school student to compete on its girls\u2019 track and field team. <\/p>\n State Rep. Laurel Libby (R) had posted a photo of the student, as well as the student\u2019s name and deadname \u2014 the name they used before transitioning \u2014 on her Facebook page, attracting national media attention and driving the school to increase its policy and security presence. Libby\u2019s Democratic colleagues voted late last month to censure her<\/a> over the post. <\/p>\n A spokesperson for Mills, who clashed with Trump<\/a> over the state\u2019s defiance of his executive order at a National Governor\u2019s Association event in Washington last month,\u00a0said neither the governor\u2019s office nor the state education department were contacted directly by HHS during its investigation.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI imagine that the outcome of this politically directed investigation is all but predetermined,\u201d Mill\u2019s said in a statement<\/a> at the start of the investigation. \u201cMaine may be one of the first states to undergo an investigation by his Administration, but we won\u2019t be the last.\u201d <\/p>\n The Education Department has launched at least eight investigations into states, school districts and athletic associations since Trump\u2019s executive order on transgender athletes. In letters to state officials last month, Attorney General Pam Bondi promised swift legal action<\/a> against entities that refuse to enforce the order’s restrictions.<\/p>\n \u2014Updated at 3:45 p.m. EST<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Trump administration says Maine\u2019s education department violated federal law by allowing transgender athletes to participate in girls\u2019 and women\u2019s sports. The Department of Health and Human Services’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) notified Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) and state Attorney General Aaron Frey (D) in a letter dated Feb. 25 that it had issued a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=758"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":759,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/758\/revisions\/759"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}