The Maine Principals’ Association is asking a federal judge to block a demand from the U.S. Department of Justice for rosters of all high school sports teams as part of the Trump administration’s lawsuit against the state over transgender athletes.
Last month, the Justice Department subpoenaed the Maine Principals’ Association for a trove of information as the Trump administration tries to force the state to ban transgender athletes from girls sports. The full list of the department’s demands is unclear because a federal judge sealed the subpoena this week at the request of the principals’ group.
But in its motion asking the court to terminate or quash the subpoena, the association said the Justice Department wants “rosters of all students playing interscholastic sports in the state of Maine, MPA organizational charts, as well as ‘all complaints, concerns, praise or reports received by the MPA’ from any individual in the state of Maine.”
The group’s attorney, James Belleau, wrote that the subpoena was a “fishing expedition” and a “blind-fire request” by the Justice Department to support political or policy arguments over transgender athletes, not the legal case against the Maine Department of Education.
“The subpoena served on the MPA should be quashed because it seeks documents that are irrelevant, disproportionate, and impose an undue burden on a non-party that has merely complied with applicable state law,” Belleau wrote. “Based on the allegations in the complaint, the central legal issue in this case is whether federal law preempts the Maine Human Rights Act. The subpoena at issue here improperly seeks to shift the focus to the practical effects of the state law on a private organization and individuals within the state—matters that are not relevant to the legal question of preemption.”
In its formal response to the court, the Justice Department stated repeatedly that the requested information is “highly relevant evidence” to its case even though the lawsuit targets the Maine Department of Education, not the Maine Principals’ Association.
“The United States’ subpoena seeks highly relevant information from the Maine Principals’ Association that is proportional to the needs of this important case concerning boys playing in sports designated for girls,” Justice Department attorney Matthew Donnelly wrote. “The Defendant Maine Department of Education has effectively ceded its responsibility for interscholastic athletics over to the MPA, which means that the MPA possesses a vast amount of highly relevant evidence.”
Maine was thrust into the national spotlight in the cultural war over transgender athletes back in February when a Republican state lawmaker, Rep. Laurel Libby of Auburn, posted pictures on social media of a transgender athlete who had won a girls’ high school track championship. Her post, which included the name of the athlete, quickly went viral and within days came to the attention of President Donald Trump.
But the issue exploded into international headlines when Trump — during a White House luncheon with governors — told Maine Gov. Janet Mills that his administration would cut off funding if Maine didn’t change its policy. Mills, a Democrat and a former state attorney general, responded “See you in court.”
The Justice Department filed its lawsuit against the state in April, alleging that the Maine Department of Education was violating the rights of girls under Title IX by allowing athletes to compete on teams based on their gender identity. The Maine Principals’ Association maintains that it is merely following state law laid out in the Maine Human Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on gender identity.
The Trump administration has sued or threatened lawsuits against other states over its interpretation of Title IX, the 1972 law that sought to level the playing field between men and women in the classroom, during extracurricular activities and in athletics. Legal experts have said that the Justice Department’s case against Maine or other states over transgender issue could become the legal test case over Title IX that ends up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
This story appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.
