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Maine Governor Janet Mills at a press conference in October 2023.
Maine's attorney general says the Trump administration is withholding funds crucial for feeding school children and adults with disabilities.
Maine’s attorney general filed a lawsuit on Monday asking a federal judge to lift President Donald Trump’s pause on education funding to the state.
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The pause was announced last week by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins as part of Trump’s Title IX interpretation disallowing transgender student-athletes to play sports aligned with their gender identity. The state claims the pause is withholding funds used to feed school children and disabled adults, contrary to promises from the USDA and Rollins.
Related: Trump vs. Maine: State refuses anti-trans sports policies as federal agencies push to cut funding
Attorney General Aaron M. Frey said the state’s Child Nutrition Program of the Maine Department of Education was unable to access federal funds used to feed children and adults with disabilities and asked the court to grant a temporary restraining order releasing the federal funds.
“Without federal funds, state employees who administer school food programs will be laid off, food providers will not be able to purchase food or pay staff to prepare and serve food, and schools will not be reimbursed for meals they provide,” Frey said in a statement released yesterday. “In short, children, as well as some vulnerable adults, will go hungry.”
Frey was unsparing in the lawsuit, saying Rollins sounded “more like a hostage taker seeking a ransom payment than a cabinet-level federal official."
Rollins was equally confrontational in her letter to Gov. Janet Mills on announcing the pause.
“You cannot openly violate federal law against discrimination in education and expect federal funding to continue unabated,” Rollins wrote in her letter dated April 2. “Your defiance of federal law has cost your state, which is bound by Title IX in educational programming. Today, I am freezing Maine’s federal funds for certain administrative and 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.”
Rollins also promised that the pause would “not impact federal feeding programs or direct assistance to Mainers; if a child was fed today, they will be fed tomorrow.”
The lawsuit came after news was announced on Friday that the U.S. Department of Education had launched a Title IX Special Investigative Team to investigate the state’s transgender student-athlete policies.
“To all the entities that continue to allow men to compete in women’s sports and use women’s intimate facilities: there’s a new sheriff in town,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a press release announcing the team on Friday. “We will not allow you to get away with denying women's civil rights any longer.”
Advocates decried the Trump pause and Rollins letter.
“This sounds like another incoherent and baseless plan with the potential to waste untold taxpayer resources to pursue an unhinged agenda of animus," a GLAAD spokesperson told The Advocate. "In Maine, no fewer than six federal agencies reportedly swarmed the state over two transgender students. This is so far out of whack with what states need to help every student and community succeed. Targeting a handful of athletes does nothing to protect women and girls, in fact, these bans endanger girls as they risk invasive genital exams and other expensive 'verification.' It makes no sense, and it is harmful. Every student and school is safer when the most vulnerable students are protected and respected.”
Mills and Trump had a live televised confrontation over transgender student-athletes and the threat of losing federal funds at a National Governors Association meeting at the White House in February.
“Is Maine here, the governor of Maine here?” Trump asked the bipartisan gathering of governors. “Are you not going to comply with it?
“I’m complying with state and federal laws,” Mills responded.
“Well—I’m— we are the federal law,” Trump replied “You better do it. You better do it because you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t. And by the way, your population, even though it’s somewhat liberal—although I did very well there—your population doesn’t want men playing in women’s sports. So you better comply because otherwise, you’re not getting any federal funding.”
“We’ll see you in court,” Mills responded.
“Good. I’ll see you in court,” Trump said. “That should be a real easy one. And enjoy your life after governor because I don’t think you’ll be in elected politics.”
The Trump administration has not commented publicly on the lawsuit.
