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The Trump administration is suing Maine’s education department for failing to comply with the government’s push to ban transgender athletes from girls’ sports.
The move is an escalation in the dispute over whether Maine is abiding by a federal law barring discrimination in education, based on sex.
The lawsuit follows weeks of feuding between the Republican administration and Democratic Gov. Janet Mills.
It has led to threats to cut off funding and a war of words at the White House, where President Donald Trump sought out Mills and asked her if she’d comply with an executive order on transgender athletes.
She told him she'd comply with state and federal law.
“You’d better comply,” Trump warned. “Otherwise, you’re not getting any federal funding.”
Mills replied: “We’ll see you in court.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the legal action at a news conference in Washington on Wednesday.
She appeared alongside former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines, who has emerged as a public face of the opposition to transgender athletes.
Trump's departments of Education and Health and Human Services have said the Maine agency is violating the federal Title IX anti-discrimination law by allowing transgender girls to participate on girls’ teams.
Maine officials have refused to agree with a settlement that would have banned transgender students from sports, arguing that the law does not prevent schools from letting transgender athletes participate.
In March, the Trump administration pulled millions of dollars of research funding from the University of Maine.
In an email received by the college from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the agency’s chief financial officer ordered all payments paused while the department “evaluates if it should take any follow-on actions” related to possible civil rights violations at the school, according to Reuters.
The university said in a press release that it had received $30 million in USDA funding in fiscal year 2024.
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