Trump Administration Launches Investigation into Maine Hours After He Sparred With Governor
The U.S. Department of Education announced an investigation into Maine’s adherence to federal Title IX laws on Friday, hours after President Donald Trump publicly sparred with the state’s governor on the issue.
Trump and Democratic Maine Governor Janet Mills traded barbs at a meeting with governors from across the country. The president blasted Maine while referencing an executive order he signed barring transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports – leading to a kerfuffle.
“You better do it because you’re not going to get federal funding,” Trump told the governor.
Mills responded, “We’re going to follow the law, sir” and later added, “We’ll see you in court.”
Trump replied he would love to face Maine in the courts and said to Mills, “Enjoy your life after governor because I don’t think you’ll be an elected official afterward.”
Late Friday afternoon, the Education Department cited the exchange while announcing a Title IX investigation.
Craig Trainor, the department’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, blasted Maine’s school system in a statement:
Maine would have you believe that it has no choice in how it treats women and girls in athletics—that is, that it must follow its state laws and allow male athletes to compete against women and girls. Let me be clear: If Maine wants to continue to receive federal funds from the Education Department, it has to follow Title IX. If it wants to forgo federal funds and continue to trample the rights of its young female athletes, that, too, is its choice. OCR will do everything in its power to ensure taxpayers are not funding blatant civil rights violators.
Trainor’s office added it would investigate Maine over Title IX compliance, citing Trump’s “remarks at the Republican Governor’s Association Dinner:
Today the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) sent a letter to the Maine Department of Education Commissioner Pender Makin announcing that OCR is initiating a directed investigation of the Maine Department of Education (MDOE) amid allegations that it continues to allow male athletes to compete in girls’ interscholastic athletics and that it has denied female athletes female-only intimate facilities, thereby violating federal antidiscrimination law.
The letter also notifies MDOE that OCR is launching an investigation into Maine School Administrative District #51 (MSAD #51), after it was reported that Greely High School, a school under its jurisdiction, is continuing to allow at least one male student to compete in girls’ categories.
In a Feb. 5 executive order barring transgender athletes from competing with women and girls, Trump argued such competition only served to “deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities.”
Trump further claimed girls who face athletes in the field of competition who were born male faced “endangerment, humiliation, and silencing.”
