{"id":16170,"date":"2025-04-08T21:02:27","date_gmt":"2025-04-08T21:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=16170"},"modified":"2025-04-08T21:56:49","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T21:56:49","slug":"maine-sues-trump-admin-over-funding-cuts-after-refusing-to-ban-men-from-womens-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=16170","title":{"rendered":"Maine Sues Trump Admin over Funding Cuts After Refusing to Ban Men from Women\u2019s Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/thestarnewsnetwork.com\/2025\/04\/08\/maine-sues-trump-admin-over-funding-cuts-after-refusing-to-ban-men-from-womens-sports\/<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
by Jaryn Crouson<\/h5>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The state of Maine filed a lawsuit Monday against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins for revoking funding after the state refused to comply with the Trump administration\u2019s directive banning men from competing in women\u2019s sports.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0claims the USDA\u2019s revocation of funding is \u201cblatantly unlawful\u201d and violates the Administrative Procedure Act for \u201cfreezing federal funds allocated to Maine to feed schoolchildren.\u201d Funding from the USDA was cut on April 2\u00a0after Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills got into a\u00a0public spat<\/a>\u00a0with President Donald Trump during which the governor declined to comply with Trump\u2019s\u00a0ban<\/a>\u00a0on men in women\u2019s sports.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Secretary claimed that she was taking this action because the State of Maine is allegedly violating Title IX of the Civil Rights Law of 1964 by permitting transgender girls and women to participate in girls\u2019 and women\u2019s school sports,\u201d the lawsuit reads. \u201cThe Secretary provided no legal basis for her interpretation of Title IX, and her interpretation is wrong. Indeed, several federal courts have held that Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause require schools to permit transgender girls and women to play on girls\u2019 and women\u2019s teams.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"The USDA stated<\/a>\u00a0the funding freeze will only apply to \u201ccertain administrative and technological functions in schools\u201d and would \u201cnot impact federal feeding programs or direct assistance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is only the beginning, though you are free to end it at any time by protecting women and girls in compliance with federal law,\u201d USDA\u2019s letter to Mills reads.<\/p>\n

Mills\u2019 office and Maine\u2019s Attorney General\u2019s office did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n

The USDA opened an\u00a0investigation<\/a>\u00a0into Maine\u2019s education department\u00a0on Feb. 22, the day after the fiery exchange between Trump and Mills, to review its compliance with Title IX, which protects women from discrimination. The U.S. Department of Education (ED) on March 19\u00a0found<\/a>\u00a0the state\u2019s education department \u201chas policies and practices that are in violation of Title IX.\u201d On April 2, the USDA\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0it had frozen federal funding \u201cfor certain Maine educational programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe outcome of [the Office of Civil Rights\u2019] investigation of [the Maine Department of Education] confirms that it has violated federal antidiscrimination law by allowing boys to compete in girls\u2019 sports and boys to occupy girls\u2019 intimate facilities,\u201d Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for Civil Rights at the department said in a\u00a0statement<\/a>\u00a0at the time. \u201cToday\u2019s findings and proposed resolution agreement demonstrate to MDOE and any other entity receiving federal funding that the Trump Administration will not tolerate unlawful discrimination against girls and women. If Maine does not swiftly and completely come into compliance with Title IX, we will initiate the process to limit MDOE\u2019s access to federal funding.\u201d<\/p>\n

The department sent a letter to the state threatening it with \u201cimminent enforcement action\u201d if it did not agree to a resolution plan within ten days.<\/p>\n

The USDA also\u00a0temporarily paused funding<\/a>\u00a0to the entire University of Maine System (UMS) on March 10 but\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0the system was in compliance with federal law on March 19.<\/p>\n

Trump\u00a0signed<\/a>\u00a0an executive order on Feb. 5 banning men from competing in women\u2019s sports and subsequently demanded the NCAA\u00a0restore<\/a>\u00a0female records taken by male competitors. Several female athletes have been\u00a0injured<\/a>\u00a0after being forced to compete against males, such as 19-year-old Payton McNabb, who suffered a traumatic brain injury after a male athlete claiming to be a transgender female spiked a volleyball onto her head.<\/p>\n

During his presidency, former President Joe Biden attempted to rewrite Title IX, a rule meant to protect women from discrimination, to include protections for\u00a0transgender<\/a>\u00a0individuals, which was\u00a0widely criticized<\/a>\u00a0by Republican-led states and faced numerous legal challenges. The rule was challenged and\u00a0eventually dropped<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Under Biden\u2019s rule, the USDA attempted to\u00a0weaponize<\/a>\u00a0school lunch funding in an attempt to force states to comply, though the move was met with several legal challenges.<\/p>\n

Maine\u2019s Department of Education and the USDA did not immediately respond to the DCNF\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n

\u2013\u00a0 \u2013 \u2013<\/p>\n

Jaryn Crouson is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n
\n

The post Maine Sues Trump Admin over Funding Cuts After Refusing to Ban Men from Women\u2019s Sports<\/a> first appeared on The Star News Network<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/thestarnewsnetwork.com\/2025\/04\/08\/maine-sues-trump-admin-over-funding-cuts-after-refusing-to-ban-men-from-womens-sports\/ by Jaryn Crouson \u00a0 The state of Maine filed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":143,"featured_media":3655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-daily-star"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/143"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16170"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16172,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16170\/revisions\/16172"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}