Two federal judges have denied the Trump administration’s request that they recuse themselves from its lawsuit against Maine over transgender athletes.
Judges Stacey Neumann and Karen Wolf on Thursday issued a six-page decision in which they wrote “we are satisfied that we can remain fair and impartial in this case.”
The Trump administration’s motion raised concerns about the judges’ impartiality because it had subpoenaed the relative of a court employee and pointed to their recusal in an earlier case over the Maine House censoring state Rep. Laurel Libby, R-Auburn, for her social media posts last winter targeting a transgender athlete who won a girls track-and-field title.
But the judges countered that the two cases are substantially different. In the Libby case, the judges noted that the relative of the court employee would have been affected by the outcome, whereas the new case centers on a disagreement between the state and federal government over a matter of policy.
The judges further noted that they don’t work alongside the employee in question and what contact they do have is limited and mostly via email. Additionally, they have never met this employee’s relative, according to the decision.
“A reasonable observer with knowledge of these different circumstances—as well as the circumstances outlined above—would not doubt our ability to be impartial based on our prior recusals,” Neumann and Wolf wrote.
Last April, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced a Title IX lawsuit against Maine, alleging that the state has discriminated against girls and women and has failed to protect them in sports. The complaint alleges that competing with or alongside transgender athletes exposes girls and women to “heightened risks” of physical and psychological harm. The lawsuit cited no instances of Maine girls suffering physical harm while competing with or alongside transgender athletes.
In the 31-page civil rights lawsuit, the Trump administration pointed to three examples of transgender athletes competing in girls sporting events or on girls teams. Together, those three athletes placed in the top three in seven events over three years. In two instances, their performances were key in their schools’ placements in track-and-field and skiing competitions, the administration claims.
“This discrimination is not only unfair but also demeaning, signaling to girls that their opportunities and achievements are secondary to accommodating others,” the Trump administration wrote in the lawsuit, calling the state’s policies “unapologetic sex discrimination.”
For the 2023-2024 school year, about 45,000 students participated in high school sports in Maine, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. (That does count students who participated in two or more sports multiple times.)
The lawsuit fulfilled Bondi’s pledge to take the state to court over noncompliance with President Donald Trump’s February 2025 executive order barring transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports.
It could ultimately land before the conservative U.S. Supreme Court, where the Trump administration could ask it to define Title IX, the landmark 1972 law barring sex-based discrimination in schools, to outlaw athletic policies like the ones in Maine and more than 20 other states.
Not long after Trump signed that executive order last year, he singled out Maine during a Republican governors meeting in Washington. The next day Trump and Gov. Janet Mills crossed paths at an event at the White House. In a heated exchange, Trump pressed Mills on the state’s policy toward transgender athletes and the governor told the president that she would “see you in court.”
State law, specifically the Maine Human Rights Act, prohibits discrimination in education, employment, housing and more on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, disability, ancestry or national origin.
After that verbal sparring at the White House, the Trump administration launched an unprecedented pressure campaign against Maine over the inclusion of transgender athletes. Key to that was a slate of investigations from six federal agencies targeting the state, the Maine Department of Education, the Maine Principals’ Association, Greely High School in Cumberland and the University of Maine System.
The case is set to go to trial later this year.
