President Donald Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Monday announced that Maine violated federal civil rights law by allowing males to play on female sports teams.
The department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) specifically found that the Maine Department of Education, the Maine Principals’ Association, and Greely High School have each violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits discrimination based on sex in education programs and activities receiving federal funding.
The OCR launched its compliance review after a transgender-identifying boy claimed the victory in the Maine Class B championship for the Greely High School girls’ track and field team in February. The high school boy was allowed to perform on the girls’ team, despite Trump’s executive order barring males from participating on female sports teams. Following Trump’s order, Maine officials publicly said they would not comply with the order, siding with transgender-identifying males over women and girls.
“The Maine Department of Education may not shirk its obligations under Federal law by ceding control of its extracurricular activities, programs, and services to the Maine Principals’ Association,” said Anthony Archeval, Acting Director of the Office for Civil Rights at HHS. “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.”
HHS said the OCR’s determination letter sent to the three entities offers them the opportunity to voluntarily commit within ten days to comply with Title IX “or risk referral to the U.S. Department of Justice for appropriate action.”
President Trump’s executive order on “Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports” was created to protect female student athletes from having “to compete with or against or having to appear unclothed before males.” The order also mandates each federal department to “review grants to education programs and, where appropriate, rescind funding to programs that fail to comply with the policy established in this order,” which protects women “as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.”
HHS’s findings come after the Department of Education launched its own investigation into Maine following the teen boy’s win at the high school girls’ pole vault competition.
The Trump administration last week also ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to pause federal funds to the University of Maine System (UMS) over the state’s refusal to protect women’s sports.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
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