The Trump administration said Friday that it would begin the process of cutting off federal K-12 funding to Maine after the state rejected a list of demands over transgender athletes.
It's the latest escalation of a now seven-week-old dispute that could have major financial implications for Maine. The state receives hundreds of millions of dollars in K-12 grants annually from the federal government, although it was unclear Friday afternoon how much of that could be at stake.
“The Department has given Maine every opportunity to come into compliance with Title IX, but the state’s leaders have stubbornly refused to do so, choosing instead to prioritize an extremist ideological agenda over their students’ safety, privacy, and dignity,” Craig Trainor, assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education, said in a statement on Friday.
The U.S. Department of Education had set a Friday deadline for the state to sign a "resolution agreement" stemming from an investigation that found Maine violated Title IX by allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls' and women's sports. The department threatened to refer the case to the U.S. Department of Justice "for enforcement" unless Maine came into compliance.
But the state refused to accept the agreement on Friday.
"We will not sign the Resolution Agreement, and we do not have revisions to counter propose," assistant attorney general Sarah Forster wrote to Bradley Burke, regional director of the education department's Office of Civil Rights. "We agree that we are at an impasse."
The brief response letter also refutes the Trump administration interpretation of Title IX, the decades-old law that bans sex-based discrimination in federally funded educational settings and activities. Only a handful of transgender athletes have competed in high school sports this year.
"Nothing in Title IX or its implementing regulations prohibits schools from allowing transgender girls and women to participate on girls’ and women’s sports teams," Forster wrote. "Your letters to date do not cite a single case that so holds. To the contrary, various federal courts have held that Title IX and/or the Equal Protection Clause require schools to allow such participation."
Trainor fired back hours later in a press release announcing the referral to the Justice Department and the beginning of administrative proceedings to terminate K-12 funding.
“The Maine Department of Education will now have to defend its discriminatory practices before a Department administrative law judge and in a federal court against the Justice Department," Trainor said. "Governor Mills would have done well to adhere to the wisdom embedded in the old idiom—be careful what you wish for. Now she will see the Trump Administration in court.”
Trainor was referring to Mills' now-famous retort to Trump — "See you in court — during a late-February exchange that drew national attention and put Maine at the center of the Trump administration's focus on transgender athletes.
According to the Maine Department of Education, the agency received $283 million in federal funds in fiscal year 2024. The amount fluctuates from year to year, however, based on formulas that the federal government uses.
Department spokesperson Chloe Teboe said the agency could not speculate on the potential impacts of the Trump administration's threat to terminate federal K-12 funding.
The state's response was widely expected, however.
The Trump administration has used investigations and the threat of funding cuts to attempt to force Maine to change its policy on transgender athletes. Maine officials have responded that they are following state and federal non-discrimination laws, even as Gov. Janet Mills has sought to cast the dispute as one about state's rights.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has already referred Maine to the Justice Department over the issue. And the Maine Department of Education had declined late last month to accept the March 19 resolution agreement, prompting the federal agency to issue the warning letter and set Friday's deadline.
These are the latest developments in a now seven-week-old dispute that blew up after President Donald Trump got into a brief exchange with Gov. Janet Mills during a White House luncheon. Trump questioned whether Maine would comply with his executive order banning transgender athletes from girls' and women's sports. Mills initially replied that Maine was following state and federal law but ultimately quipped "See you in court" after the president threatened to withhold federal funding from the state.
Since then, the Trump administration has targeted Maine with multiple investigations, funding cuts and other actions. Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey is also suing the U.S. Department of Agriculture over the agency's decision to freeze some funding to the state.
Meanwhile, Republicans in the Maine Legislature are calling on Democratic leaders to hold hearings on several bills that aim to change Maine's non-discrimination policy by removing references to "gender identity." Those bills have yet to be scheduled for public hearings, however.
