Trump administration finds Maine in violation of Title IX over trans athletes

The Trump administration is giving Maine until March 27 to reverse its policy allowing transgender student-athletes to participate in girls’ and women’s sports or face the Justice Department. 

The Department of Health and Human Services’s (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) said Monday that Maine’s Department of Education, the Maine Principals’ Association and Greely High School, a school of about 700 students along the coast of southern Maine, each violated Title IX by permitting trans athletes to compete on teams that best align with their gender identity rather than their sex at birth. 

The office said it offered each entity “an opportunity to voluntarily commit” to resolving the matter through a signed agreement to ban transgender athletes from female sports teams, but the offer would expire in 10 days. 

After the March 27 deadline, the state runs the risk of “referral to the U.S. Department of Justice for appropriate action,” the OCR said Monday. 

“We hope the Maine Department of Education, the Maine Principals’ Association, and Greely High School will work with us to come to an agreement that restores fairness in women’s sports,” acting OCR Director Anthony Archeval said. 

On Wednesday, the Education Department’s OCR similarly found Maine’s education department had violated Title IX. It offered 10 days to sign a resolution agreement “or risk imminent enforcement action,” including referral to the Justice Department.  

The agreement, if signed, requires the state education department to issue a directive to public school districts mandating they comply with the Trump administration’s interpretation of Title IX, which forbids trans students from playing on sports teams or accessing facilities that match their gender identity. Districts should be reminded “that noncompliance places their federal funding in jeopardy.” 

Under the terms of the agreement, Maine’s education department would also need to strip transgender student-athletes of any titles, records or awards won in girls’ or women’s athletic competitions and send letters of apology to non-transgender students who placed behind them “for allowing her educational experience and participation in school sports to be marred by sex discrimination.” 

In February, the Education Department similarly called for the NCAA and the National Federation of State High School Associations to “restore to female athletes the records, titles, awards, and recognitions misappropriated by biological males competing in female categories.” 

A spokesperson for Maine’s department of education did not immediately return a request for comment.

Maine, one of the nation’s least populous states, has recently found itself at the center of the nation’s debate over trans athletes. Democratic Gov. Janet Mills clashed with President Trump over the state’s refusal to comply with an executive order to bar transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports last month, and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi threatened to sue the state if federal investigators found it was requiring non-transgender girls to compete against or alongside their transgender peers. 

Mills and state Attorney General Aaron Frey (D) have both held that Maine anti-discrimination laws prevent the state from restricting participation in sports based on gender identity. 

In a statement last month responding to the White House’s threats to withhold the state’s federal funding, Frey accused Trump of using “children as pawns.” 

“Fortunately, though, the rule of law still applies in this county, and I will do everything in my power to defend Maine’s laws and block efforts by the President to bully and threaten us,” Frey said. 

A spokesperson for Frey said Tuesday that the state attorney general’s office is reviewing the OCR’s proposed settlement agreement but declined to comment further. A representative for Mills referred questions about the agreement to the governor’s previous statements on the Trump administration’s Title IX investigation, which she has called “politically directed.”

In an email, the Maine Principals’ Association (MPA), which governs high school sports in the state, said its policy on trans athletes is consistent with the Maine Human Rights Act, which explicitly protects the right of transgender students to participate in athletic programs that match their gender identity. 

The organization added that HHS does not have Title IX jurisdiction over it, because the MPA does not receive funding from the federal government. 

“In short, a small portion of our funding comes from 151 member schools who receive the majority of their funding from local property taxes and the state. The vast majority of our funding comes from ticket sales, sponsorships, streaming, television and other contracts,” the group said. 

Greely High School officials did not return a request for comment. 

The school drew national media attention after Republican state Rep. Laurel Libby posted photos of a transgender athlete at the school on her Facebook page. Maine’s Democratic-led House later voted to censure Libby for the post because the student is a minor. 

Libby sued the state House Speaker and clerk over the censure vote last week, arguing the Democratic majority acted unconstitutionally and effectively disenfranchised her constituents “in retaliation for protected speech on a highly important and hotly debated matter of public concern.”

—Updated March 19 at 5:35 p.m. EDT