The Department of Education is giving Maine one last chance to comply with revised Title IX regulations to protect female athletes from competing against transgender athletes.
The Trump administration earlier this month determined that Maine was allowing transgender athletes to compete in women’s athletics, in violation of Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in programs that receive federal funding.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order Feb. 5 that revised Title IX to exclude gender identity, which was put in place during the Biden administration.
The Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights sent a letter Monday to the Maine Department of Education regarding a final warning to comply with Title IX or the results of its investigation will be sent to the Department of Justice for enforcement.
“The Maine Department of Education’s indifference to its past, current, and future female athletes is astonishing,” said Craig Trainor, the Education Department’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights, in a news release. “By refusing to comply with Title IX, MDOE allows — indeed, encourages — male competitors to threaten the safety of female athletes, wrongfully obtain girls’ hard-earned accolades, and deny females equal opportunity in educational activities to which they are guaranteed under Title IX.”
The Education Department said in the news release that the Office of Civil Rights on March 19 proposed a way for Maine to voluntarily resolve the issue, but the state had not acted to “protect women and girls from discrimination in sports or intimate spaces.”
Among the requirements of the proposed resolution included ordering the Maine DOE to direct all public school districts in the state to comply with Title IX and reminding them that noncompliance places their federal funding in jeopardy.
The directive would also forbid schools from allowing biological males to participate in any athletic program, or access any locker room or bathroom, designated for females and that meaning of words such as “woman” and “man” are to be understood “in the context of the facts that there are only two sexes.”
The Department of Education said if Maine does not sign the proposed resolution by April 11, the matter will be referred to DOJ, which could result in the state losing federal education funding.
“Under prior administrations, enforcement was an illusory proposition,” Trainor said. “No more. [The Education Department] is moving quickly to ensure that federal funds no longer support patently illegal practices that harm women and girls.”
On March 17, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights announced that the Maine DOE, the Maine Principals’ Association, which governs high school sports in the state, and Greely High School violated Title IX. The Office of Civil Rights gave the entities an opportunity to voluntarily commit within 10 days to resolve the matter through a signed agreement or risk referral to DOJ.
Newsmax has contacted Maine Gov. Janet Mills and Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey for comment.
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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