Originally Authored at TheFederalist.com
Maine sued the Trump administration on Monday for freezing federal funds to the state after it refused to ban men in women’s sports. Maine also lied in its lawsuit about threats to school lunches for school children.
The lawsuit, brought against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), claims that the Trump administration cannot revoke federal funding from Maine — despite the fact that USDA found the state “in direct violation of Title IX” because of “Maine’s continual refusal to provide equal opportunity to women and girls in educational programs.”
Following the example set out by a shameless Biden administration, which really did have a USDA that threatened the meals of school children if states did not follow their pro-mutilation-and-castration-for-children ideology, the state of Maine is using children as fodder in an attempt to make a political point.
The lawsuit claims USDA’s actions are “blatantly unlawful” and violate the Administrative Procedure Act because, according to Maine, the revocation is “freezing federal funds allocated to Maine to feed schoolchildren.”
The problem for Maine is that its claim has is a lie.
In her letter to Gov. Janet Mills, D-Maine, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins made clear that the freeze would “not impact federal feeding programs or direct assistance” and only affect “certain administrative and technological functions in schools.”
Rollins then warned, “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.”
Maine’s lawsuit goes on to say that “the Secretary claimed that she was taking this action because the State of Maine is allegedly violating Title IX of the Civil Rights Law of 1964 by permitting transgender girls and women to participate in girls’ and women’s school sports. The Secretary provided no legal basis for her interpretation of Title IX, and her interpretation is wrong. Indeed, several federal courts have held that Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause require schools to permit transgender girls and women to play on girls’ and women’s teams.”
While it is unclear where Maine’s lawyers are coming up with the idea that Title IX requires schools to allow men in women’s sports, what is clear is that a federal judge scrapped in its entirety the Biden administration’s attempt to force exactly that idea into Title IX.
The Trump administration subsequently reinstated 2020 rules governing Title IX, which protect women and girls instead of ripping apart their civil rights protections. President Donald Trump also signed an executive order eradicating “gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government.”
Multiple federal agencies are investigating Maine, and the federal government has found the state in violation of Title IX numerous times. Maine is also under investigation for other transgender-related policies, like blocking parents from being able to know if their child begins claiming to be “transgender” in school.
Breccan F. Thies is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. He previously covered education and culture issues for the Washington Examiner and Breitbart News. He holds a degree from the University of Virginia and is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. You can follow him on X: @BreccanFThies.