A federal choose mentioned the Trump administration should elevate their freeze on federal funding to Maine.
The ruling reads that the USDA “must immediately unfreeze and release to the state of Maine any federal funding that they have frozen or failed or refused to pay because of the state of Maine’s alleged failure to comply with the requirements of Title IX.”
The administration can be “barred from freezing, terminating, or otherwise interfering with the state of Maine’s future federal funding for alleged violations of Title IX without complying with the legally required procedure.”
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President Donald Trump and Maine Gov. Janet Mills clashed Friday on the White Home over govt order compliance. (Pool through AP/Win McNamee/Getty Pictures)
The USDA introduced the funding freeze and a assessment of federal funding to Maine earlier this month after the state refused to supply equal alternatives to girls and ladies in instructional applications.
The state has refused to adjust to President Donald Trump’s February govt order to ban trans athletes from ladies’ and girls’s sports activities, prompting immense federal stress. Trump initially vowed to chop federal funding to the state if it refused to adjust to the order throughout a Feb. 20 speech.
Maine officers filed a lawsuit in opposition to the USDA on Monday following the company’s determination to freeze funding to the state.
The state accused the USDA of “withholding funding used to feed children in schools, childcare centers, and after-school programming as well as disabled adults in congregate settings,” an argument the choose agreed with.
The choose famous that the freeze was as a consequence of Title IX violations, nevertheless it “restricted” the flexibility to “provid[e] meals to children and vulnerable adults.”
Gov. Janet Mills speaks throughout a information convention within the aftermath of a mass capturing, in Lewiston, Maine, Friday, Oct. 27, 2023. Gov. Mills, a Democrat, rolled out laws on Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2024, she mentioned will stop harmful folks from possessing weapons and strengthening psychological well being providers to assist stop future tragedies just like the Lewiston mass capturing that shook the state. (AP Photograph/Matt Rourke)
Sen. Susan Collins, R-ME, lately known as for the problems between the administration and her state to be “resolved,” saying that she would proceed to battle for federal funding for the state whereas additionally being in opposition to transgender athletes in organic feminine sports activities.
The Division of Training additionally launched an investigation into the state as a result of difficulty.
The U.S. Division of Training’s Workplace for Civil Rights (OCR) referred the Maine Division of Training (MDOE) to the Division of Justice Friday for continuning to permit trans athletes to compete in ladies sports activities.
It is the second DOJ referral the state’s instructional establishments have confronted within the final month over the problem, after the Division of Well being and Human Companies referred MDOE, the Maine Principals’ Affiliation and Greely Excessive College March 28.
After Trump signed an govt order to ban trans athletes from girls’s and ladies’ sports activities Feb. 5, Maine was one of many many states that overtly defied the order. The state’s divide on trans inclusion was then delivered to mild when Maine state Rep. Laurel Libby recognized a trans athlete in a social media submit who received a ladies pole vault competitors for Greely Excessive College that month.
Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills challenges U.S. President Donald Trump over trans girls in sports activities as Trump addresses a gathering of governors on the White Home on February 21, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Win McNamee/Getty Pictures)
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Libby was censured by Maine’s Democratic majority and Speaker Ryan Fecteau for the submit, which has prevented her from finishing up different legislative actions to serve her constituents.
Fox Information’ Jackson Thompson and Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report.
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