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Not to be too alarmist, but sham investigations are a hallmark of authoritarian regimes.
The finding by the Trump administration that Maine has violated Title IX by allowing transgender girls to participate on girls’ high school sports teams fits this mold.
A look at the timeline of threats and demands shows that there was a predetermined conclusion long before any federal investigations were launched.
On Feb. 5, the president signed an executive order to effectively ban transgender girls and women from girls’ and women’s sports. That order runs counter to many state laws and policies, including Maine’s. The Maine Principals’ Association, which runs high school sports, affirmed last month that it will continue to allow trans athletes to compete in accordance with the Maine Human Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on gender identity.
On Feb. 20, President Donald Trump, while speaking to the Republican Governors Association, blasted Maine for, he said, allowing men to play women’s sports.
“We’re not going to give them any federal funding, none whatsoever, until they clean that up,” he said.
These remarks came two days after state Rep. Laurel Libby posted photos on her Facebook page that she said showed a transgender student from Greely High School who had won the Maine state championship in pole vault. She also suggested the state should lose funding because of its policy on transgender athletes.
On Feb. 21, at a White House event for the nation’s governors, Trump again threatened to withhold federal funding from Maine over the participation of transgender athletes in high school sports.
“Are you not going to comply with it?” Trump asked Gov. Janet Mills about his executive order.
“I’m complying with state and federal laws,” the governor responded. These laws include the Maine Human Rights Act and Title IX, the 1972 law barring discrimination in education “on the basis of sex,” which federal courts have ruled extends to gender identity.
Trump then said: “Well, I’m, we are the federal law.”
This does not sound like someone who is looking for information or seeking to understand the interplay, and potential conflict, between federal and state laws and presidential orders. This sounds like someone who has his mind made up and believes that he can bully others, including governors, into doing whatever he says.
The same day as the White House exchange between Trump and Mills, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launched an investigation of the Maine Department of Education and the University of Maine System. The next day (a Saturday), the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it was launching a review of Maine’s compliance with Title IX. Similar investigations were previously launched in California and Minnesota.
Four days after its investigation was announced, the U.S. Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights issued a finding that Maine was violating Title IX by denying female student athletes an equal opportunity to participate in athletics “by allowing male athletes to compete against female athletes in current and future athletic events.”
It appears no officials in Maine were interviewed during the investigation. Not the commissioner of education nor the attorney general. No one from the Maine Principal’s Association or Greely High School. It was as if HHS did a quick Google search, found a couple articles about transgender athletes winning championships in Maine, references to the MPA policy and a quote from the association’s director, and issued its findings, which, no surprise, mirror what Trump had said weeks earlier. Or maybe someone in Maine sent them all these materials.
“They can launch that kind of investigation and make a determination in four days? That’s kind of bizarre,” Sen. Joe Rafferty, D-York, who chairs the Maine Legislature’s Education and Cultural Affairs Committee, told the Bangor Daily News on Thursday.
He said he expected such an inquiry would last much longer and involve interviews or hearings with state officials. He instead compared the federal government’s actions to “a mirage.”
It remains unclear what happens next. The U.S. DHHS had not cut any funding to the Maine Department of Education as of late this week.
Most likely, the issue will head to court, especially because the Trump administration’s interpretation of Title IX, which reverses the interpretation of the previous administration, is novel and untested. Federal courts have ruled that Title IX extends to gender identity, which would give transgender students protection under the law’s equal opportunity provisions.
The Trump administration and extreme Republican lawmakers want to erase transgender Americans from our society and our lives. Transgender Americans are our neighbors, our co-workers and our family members. They, along with everyone in America, deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. Four-day investigations with predetermined outcomes won’t change that.
