The Education Department on Friday launched a probe into Maine’s transgender student sports participation policy after the president threatened the state’s federal funding at a meeting of governors at the White House.
During the event President Donald Trump touted his executive order that barred transgender students from competing in women’s sports and the effect it has had on the NCAA. Soon after he threatened Maine’s federal funding and singled out Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, and her state’s policies after she refused to say whether she would comply with his order.
The Trump administration’s response was swift.
Just hours later, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights launched a self-initiated investigation into the Maine Department of Education for potentially violating Title IX, the federal education law that bars sex-based discrimination. OCR cited “allegations that it continues to allow male athletes to compete in girls’ interscholastic athletics and that it has denied female athletes female-only intimate facilities, thereby violating federal antidiscrimination law.”
“Let me be clear: If Maine wants to continue to receive federal funds from the Education Department, it has to follow Title IX,” said Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights, in a statement. “If it wants to forgo federal funds and continue to trample the rights of its young female athletes, that, too, is its choice.”
Launching a civil rights investigation is a key step in the process of yanking a school’s federal funding. But the bar for being found guilty of a civil rights violation is high and cutting off federal education funding is a lever of power Washington has not used in decades.
The letter sent to Maine Education Commissioner Pender Makin notified her that OCR is launching a probe into Maine School Administrative District No. 51 and Greely High School in Cumberland, Maine for allowing a transgender student to compete in girls’ sports categories. The investigation follows a social media post from state Rep. Laurel Libby, a Republican, about a transgender student who won a pole-vaulting state championship.
This would be the third of in a series of investigations launched in states that have laws or policies that are inclusive of gender identity. Earlier this month, the agency launched directed investigations into the Minnesota State High School League and the California Interscholastic Federation. Maine has a state law, the Human Rights Act, which bars discrimination based on gender identity. But the Education Department on Friday argued that “state laws do not override federal antidiscrimination laws.”
Mills and Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey have vowed to fight back over any efforts to pull their school’s federal funds.
“If the President attempts to unilaterally deprive Maine school children of the benefit of Federal funding, my Administration and the Attorney General will take all appropriate and necessary legal action to restore that funding and the academic opportunity it provides,” Mills said in a statement. “The State of Maine will not be intimidated by the President’s threats.”
