A federal judge on Friday ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture to "unfreeze and release" any federal funding that the department has frozen or refused to pay to the state of Maine over alleged Title IX violations.
In a 70-page order, U.S. District Judge John Woodcock granted Maine's request for an emergency temporary restraining order after Maine filed a complaint in U.S District Court seeking to restore access to the money.
Woodcock wrote that the state of Maine has "demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits of its claim that the defendants’ actions were taken without observance of procedure required by law, and further that the State has established a likelihood of irreparable harm absent emergency injunctive relief."
On April 2, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins wrote a letter to Maine Gov. Janet Mills accusing her of violating Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in educational programs that receive federal assistance.
"You cannot openly violate federal law against discrimination in education and expect federal funding to continue unabated," Rollins wrote. "Today I am freezing Maine's federal funds for certain administrative technological functions in schools. This is only the beginning, though you are free to end it at any
time by protecting women and girls in compliance with federal law."
The day after Gov. Mills received the letter, on April 3, the Maine Department of Education's Child Nutrition Program was unable to access several sources of federal funding.
Rollins' letter to Mills followed a series of actions taken by several federal agencies over Maine's alleged noncompliance with President Donald Trump's Feb. 5 executive order that bans transgender athletes from participating in girls and women's sports.
The Maine Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity. And according to the Maine Principals' Association there were two transgender high school athletes who competed in girls' sports last year.
At a meeting of governors at the White House in February, Trump called out Mills to ask if she intended to comply with his order. Mills responded that she would comply with state and federal laws.
"Well, I'm — we are the federal law," Trump said. "You better do it. You better do it because you're not going to get any federal funding at all if you don't."
Mills replied: "See you in court."
The U.S. Department of Education has also said it will withhold federal funding from Maine after state officials refused to sign a proposed agreement that would bar transgender athletes from competing in girls' sports.
In a letter to the DOE on Friday, Maine Assistant Attorney General Sarah Forster wrote that nothing in Title IX prohibits schools from allowing transgender girls and women to participate on girls’ and women’s sports teams.
"To the contrary," Forster wrote, "various federal courts have held that Title IX and/or the Equal Protection Clause require schools to allow such participation."
The DOE responded that it will now refer that matter to the U.S. Department of Justice and will "initiate an administrative proceeding to adjudicate termination of MDOE’s federal K-12 education funding, including formula and discretionary grants."
In his decision granting the temporary restraining order against the USDA, Judge Woodcock did not weigh in on the merits of the controversy over transgender athletes.
"There is no need ... for the Court to interpret Title IX here (at least not in this lawsuit)," Woodcock wrote. Instead he said the questions before him were whether there are regulatory steps the USDA must follow before withholding federal funding and whether those steps were followed.
For now, the answers to those questions are resolved in the state of Maine's favor. A hearing will be scheduled for the state to present further evidence in support of a preliminary injunction.
