AUGUSTA, Maine — President Donald Trump’s administration announced Friday that it will investigate the Maine Department of Education and a school district over policies allowing transgender students to participate in athletics.
The investigation under Title IX, the landmark 1972 law barring sex-based discrimination in schools, comes after Trump said on Thursday that he would take away Maine’s federal funding, prompting a war of words with Gov. Janet Mills at a White House event on Friday.
It makes Maine the third state to be investigated in this way by the Republican president’s administration after California and Minnesota. After Trump retook the White House in January, his administration overturned former President Joe Biden’s interpretation of Title IX and said it will return to enforcing protections “on the basis of biological sex” in schools and colleges.
Federal funding would be at risk if the Trump administration finds that Maine has violated the law, a question that would likely require a lengthy court battle to settle. The education department has rarely taken funding from public entities targeted in Title IX investigations, but Trump has broken with convention during his tenure so far.
“Let me be clear: If Maine wants to continue to receive federal funds from the Education Department, it has to follow Title IX,” Craig Trainor, the acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement.
A notice signed by Trainor says the Trump administration will investigate Maine’s education department as well as the school district including Greely High School in Cumberland. A transgender student from that school recently won a girls indoor track title and was the subject of a post by state Rep. Laurel Libby, R-Auburn, that went viral in conservative media this week.
The notice cites a recent Trump executive order that aims to bar transgender athletes from competing against girls under a new interpretation of Title IX. At the state level, Maine has barred discrimination on the basis of gender identity since 2005.
An update to the law in 2021 increased educational protections for transgender people and led the Maine Principals’ Association, which governs high school sports, to allow high school students to compete in athletics according to their identified gender.
Spokespeople for the state education department did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but Mills and Attorney General Aaron Frey, who are both Democrats, said the state will resist any efforts to take funding away from the state.
“Any attempt by the President to cut federal funding in Maine unless transgender athletes are restricted from playing sports would be illegal and in direct violation of federal court orders,” Frey said in a Friday morning statement.
