Education Department Is Threatening to Cut All Federal Funding for Maine Schools

[dalton99a]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/11/us/politics/maine-school-funding-trump-education.html

Education Department Is Threatening to Cut All Federal Funding for Maine Schools
The Trump administration has been targeting Maine since the president sparred with Gov. Janet Mills over transgender athletes at the White House in February.
By Jenna Russell and Dana Goldstein
April 11, 2025, 6:50 p.m. ET

The Department of Education said on Friday that it was moving to cut off all federal funding for Maine’s public schools because the state had ignored President Trump’s executive order banning transgender athletes from girls’ sports teams.

The agency also said it had asked the Justice Department to pursue “enforcement action” against Maine, which the Trump administration has been targeting since the president picked a fight with the state’s Democratic governor, Janet Mills, over transgender athletes in February.

The administration had set Friday as the deadline for Maine to comply; last month, after a brief investigation, it declared that the state’s education system was violating Title IX, the federal law that prevents sex discrimination.

Ms. Mills has maintained that the state’s human rights law — which prohibits discrimination based on gender identity as well as religion, race and other protected characteristics — can be changed only by the Legislature, not by executive order. She has not expressed her own views on transgender athletes participating in girls’ and women’s sports publicly, though she has said it was an issue “worthy of a debate.”

The Education Department said in a statement that it would “initiate an administrative proceeding to adjudicate termination” of the state’s K-12 funding, which totaled $249 million in the 2024 fiscal year.

“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, the department’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in the statement.

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[Dave Bowman]

1. This is beyond despicable. 🤬

[MichMan]

2. SC decision in the early 80's, Grove vs. Bell, gave the Feds the authority to withhold funding for Title IX compliance.

While that decision was based on individual students in college receiving grants or financial aid, it may be applicable to this instance in the sense that Federal funding may be withheld based on Title IX compliance.

[49jim]

3. I'm sure Susan Collins

will be concerned!