Maine
Maine sues USDA after funding freeze amid dispute over transgender athletes
Maine isn’t backing down on the issue of transgender athletes participating in female sports. On Monday, April 7, the state sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture over a recent funding freeze.
In the lawsuit, filed by the attorney general of Maine, Aaron Frey, he said schools are required by Title IX and the equal protection clause to allow biological males to play on women’s sports teams. He argued that the federal government is withholding federal funds that go towards keeping children fed in schools, after-school programs and programs for disabled adults.
The complaint names Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, who sent a letter to Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills on April 2 announcing the freeze and alleging that the state violated Title IX in educational programming.
Rollins initially said the freeze would not affect food-providing programs but would target “certain administrative and technological functions in schools.”
“This pause does not impact federal feeding programs or direct assistance to Mainers; if a child was fed today, they will be fed tomorrow,” Rollins stated in the letter.
The lawsuit claims the Maine Department of Education’s Child Nutrition Program lost access to several sources of federal funding on April 3.
“Under the banner of keeping children safe, the Trump Administration is illegally withholding grant funds that go to keeping children fed,” Frey said in a statement. “This is just another example where no law or consequence appears to restrain the administration as it seeks capitulation to its lawlessness. The President and his cabinet secretaries do not make the law and they are not above the law, and this action is necessary to remind the President that Maine will not be bullied into violating the law.”
Then, the Trump administration launched several investigations into Maine’s compliance.
Frey is seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent the USDA from withholding funds while the court hears the case.