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U.S.|Trump Administration Says Maine Broke Law by Allowing Transgender Athletes on Teams
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/06/us/trump-maine-title-ix-transgender-athletes.html
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After issuing an executive order barring transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports last month, President Trump targeted the state for scrutiny.
March 6, 2025, 11:39 a.m. ET
The Trump administration has concluded that Maine is violating federal law by allowing transgender athletes to play on women’s teams, the state attorney general’s office said on Thursday.
President Trump had targeted the state for scrutiny last month, soon after issuing an executive order on Feb. 5 barring transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports. A conservative Maine lawmaker drew attention to the state’s transgender athletes with a contentious social media post on Feb. 17; days later, the president sparred with Gov. Janet Mills over the issue at a White House event.
“See you in court,” Ms. Mills, a Democrat, told Mr. Trump, after he said that she had “better comply” with his order, or he would cut federal funding for Maine.
That same day, the federal Office of Civil Rights announced that it was initiating a review of the Maine Department of Education, including the University of Maine system, “based on information that Maine intends to defy this executive order” and “will continue to allow biological males to compete in women’s sports.”
Four days later, on Feb. 25, the Office of Civil Rights notified Ms. Mills and the state attorney general by email that it had issued a “notice of violation” against the state’s education department for failing to comply with Title IX, the civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in education programs, including school sports. The notice was first reported on Wednesday by the Bangor Daily News; a spokeswoman for Aaron Frey, the Maine attorney general, confirmed it on Thursday.
The spokeswoman, Danna Hayes, said the office would not comment further.
It remained unclear if the finding would result in any loss of funding for Maine. The notice sent to Maine officials described federal funding that the state’s education department receives, and outlined a process for referring violations to the Department of Justice “when noncompliance cannot be corrected by informal means.” But it did not specify the next steps in the process.
