{"id":941,"date":"2025-04-11T19:31:59","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T19:31:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/?p=941"},"modified":"2025-04-13T00:16:37","modified_gmt":"2025-04-13T00:16:37","slug":"trump-administration-refers-maine-to-doj-over-transgender-athletes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/11\/trump-administration-refers-maine-to-doj-over-transgender-athletes\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump administration refers Maine to DOJ over transgender athletes"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Department of Education on Friday referred a Title IX investigation into Maine schools to the Justice Department after the state failed to reach a resolution with the Trump administration over a finding that it violated federal anti-discrimination law by allowing transgender students to participate in girls\u2019 sports. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Department has given Maine every opportunity to come into compliance with Title IX, but the state\u2019s leaders have stubbornly refused to do so, choosing instead to prioritize an extremist ideological agenda over their students\u2019 safety, privacy, and dignity,\u201d said Craig Trainor, acting assistant Education secretary for civil rights. <\/p>\n

The Education Department in its announcement<\/a> said it will also initiate administrative proceedings to determine whether to terminate federal K-12 education funding for Maine\u2019s state education department, including formula and discretionary grants. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d Trainor said. \u201cGovernor [Janet] Mills would have done well to adhere to the wisdom embedded in the old idiom \u2014 be careful what you wish for. Now she will see the Trump Administration in court.\u201d <\/p>\n

Both the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which recently began investigating schools and states that allow transgender athletes to compete in girls\u2019 sports, said in March that Maine had violated Title IX<\/a>, the federal civil rights law against sex discrimination that the Trump White House says prohibits trans athletes from competing on girls\u2019 and women\u2019s teams. <\/p>\n

The HHS\u00a0investigation covered the Maine Department of Education, the Maine Principals\u2019 Association, which governs high school sports in the state, and Greely High School, a school of about 700 students in the Portland suburbs. The Education Department\u2019s findings applied only to the state education department.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both agencies gave Maine officials\u00a0until the end of March to comply with the administration\u2019s orders to ban transgender students from girls\u2019 sports. On the last day of the month, the\u00a0Education Department issued what it called a \u201cfinal warning\u201d to Maine\u2019s state department of education, saying it would turn the investigation over to the Justice Department if the two entities did not come to an agreement by April 11.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the state education department did not immediately return a request for comment. <\/p>\n

The move by the U.S. Department of Education is the latest development in an ongoing battle between the Trump administration and Maine over the state\u2019s refusal to implement President Trump\u2019s executive order to ban trans athletes<\/a><\/u> from girls\u2019 and women\u2019s sports.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Trump threatened earlier this year to withhold federal funding from Maine if the state did not comply with his order, prompting a brief but highly publicized argument with Democratic Gov. Janet Mills at a White House event in February, during which the governor\u00a0told Trump she would see him \u201cin court.\u201d<\/a><\/u>\u00a0<\/p>\n

State officials, including Mills and Attorney General Aaron Frey (D), have argued Trump\u2019s executive order conflicts with the Maine Human Rights Act, which explicitly protects the right of transgender\u00a0students to participate on sports teams that match their gender identity.<\/p>\n

Frey’s office declined to comment on Friday. Mills\u2019s office did not immediately returned a request for comment on Friday\u2019s referral to the Justice Department.<\/p>\n

In February, Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote in a letter to Mills that it does not matter if state law allows \u201cor even requires\u201d transgender\u00a0girls to participate against and alongside non-transgender girls in school sports.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere federal and state law conflict, states and state entities are required to follow federal law,\u201d Bondi wrote, referring to Title IX. She promised swift legal action<\/a><\/u> against states that refuse to comply with Trump\u2019s order.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, the Department of Justice and Education announced the formation<\/a><\/u> of a special Title IX investigations team, which the departments said would more effectively protect students \u201cfrom the pernicious effects of gender ideology in school programs and activities.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

That the Education Department referred its investigation to the Department of Justice is of little surprise: earlier on Friday, Maine\u2019s Assistant Attorney General Sarah A. Forster wrote in a letter<\/a><\/u> to the department\u2019s Office of Civil Rights that Maine\u2019s state education department would not sign its proposed resolution.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe agree that we are at an impasse,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

The two departments are not the only ones to have targeted Maine over the state\u2019s refusal to ban trans athletes from girls\u2019 sports.<\/p>\n

Frey sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture<\/a><\/u> (USDA) last week after the agency froze some of its federal funding<\/a><\/u>, arguing the pause is \u201cblatantly unlawful\u201d and hampers the state\u2019s ability to feed schoolchildren who rely on nutrition assistance programs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Bondi said the Justice Department had pulled all \u201cnonessential\u201d funding<\/a><\/u> from Maine\u2019s state corrections department after federal officials learned a transgender woman was serving time for murder in one of the state\u2019s two women\u2019s facilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maine\u2019s Department of Corrections said the cuts, totaling around $1.5 million, would impact state-run initiatives related to substance abuse treatment and support for children with incarcerated parents.<\/p>\n

This story was updated at 4:31 p.m.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Department of Education on Friday referred a Title IX investigation into Maine schools to the Justice Department after the state failed to reach a resolution with the Trump administration over a finding that it violated federal anti-discrimination law by allowing transgender students to participate in girls\u2019 sports.  \u201cThe Department has given Maine every opportunity […]<\/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\/941"}],"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=941"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":942,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941\/revisions\/942"}],"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=941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/entouragecover.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}