The U.S. Department of Education is on the verge of cutting off federal funding to Maine’s schools over what the agency says are Title IX violations involving transgender athletes.
Maine is among several school districts and states the Trump administration is investigating over the athletes who participate in women’s and girl’s sports.
The department found Maine in violation of Title IX in mid-March for allegedly allowing male athletes to compete in female sports and use “women-only intimate spaces.”
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“The department has given Maine every opportunity to come into compliance with Title IX, but the state’s leaders have stubbornly refused to do so, choosing instead to prioritize an extremist ideological agenda over their students’ safety, privacy, and dignity,” Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said in a statement.
Maine disagrees with the Trump administration’s interpretation of civil rights law.
“Nothing in Title IX or its implementing regulations prohibits schools from allowing transgender girls and women to participate on girls’ and women’s sports teams,” Sarah A. Forster, Maine’s assistant attorney general, wrote to Trainor’s office. “To the contrary, various federal courts have held that Title IX and/or the Equal Protection Clause require schools to allow such participation.”
The Department of Education is now moving to terminate Maine’s federal K-12 education funding, including grants, and has referred the Title IX investigation to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Title IX targets
Earlier in April, the two agencies formed a joint “Title IX Special Investigations Team” to probe what administration officials have described as “a staggering volume of complaints” about female sports.
Ongoing Department of Education investigations include:
- The Illinois Department of Education, Chicago Public School District 299 and Deerfield Public Schools District 109 are under investigation for allegedly violating Title IX by requiring girls in the school to share their locker room with a boy.
- Allegations that Portland Public Schools in Oregon permitted a male track athlete to compete in a girls’ interscholastic track and field competition while also allowing the student to use the girls’ locker room. The investigation also targets the Oregon School Activities Association.
- The department’s Student Privacy Policy Office launched an investigation into the California Department of Education amid allegations that state law prohibits school personnel from disclosing a child’s “gender identity” to parents.
