U.S. District Choose John A. Woodcock, a Bush appointee, has sided with Maine’s far-left authorities, forcing the Trump administration’s Division of Agriculture to unfreeze federal funds regardless of the state’s open defiance of Title IX protections for ladies and women.
The case stems from a fiery battle between the Trump administration and Maine’s Democrat management after Governor Janet Mills refused to adjust to Government Order 14201, titled “Conserving Males Out of Girls’s Sports activities,” issued by President Trump in February.
The administration, led by USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins, retaliated by freezing essential federal funds earmarked for instructional packages and little one diet companies
In his ruling, Choose Woodcock mentioned the USDA acted “with out observance of process required by legislation,” noting that the division failed to carry any listening to or notify Congress.
The courtroom additional emphasised the grave penalties of the funding freeze, which jeopardized meals packages serving 1000’s of kids and adults throughout Maine.
“Secretary Rollins can not merely declare Maine in violation of Title IX and pull funding with zero due course of,” the choose wrote.
Choose Woodcock’s non permanent restraining order not solely mandates the discharge of those funds but in addition prohibits the U.S. Division of Agriculture from taking related actions sooner or later with out adhering to particular authorized procedures.
This determination was made after Maine’s far-left management, defying a federal order to guard equity and security underneath Title IX, doubled down on a harmful coverage that enables organic males to compete in women’ sports activities on Friday.
The state’s refusal to adjust to the U.S. Division of Schooling’s directive has escalated right into a full-blown showdown, with the Trump administration taking decisive motion to carry Maine accountable.
Maine’s Assistant Legal professional Normal issued a smug rejection of the Division of Schooling’s proposed Decision Settlement, claiming no authorized foundation exists to bar transgender women—organic males—from women’ groups.
Citing a handful of activist-driven courtroom rulings, the state’s response dripped with vanity, dismissing the privateness, security, and alternatives of feminine athletes.
“The Maine Division of Schooling and the Maine Workplace of the Legal professional Normal have reviewed the draft Decision Settlement and your Deadlock Letter dated March 31, 2025. We won’t signal the Decision Settlement, and we do not need revisions to counter suggest. We agree that we’re at an deadlock,” the letter wrote.
“Nothing in Title IX or its implementing rules prohibits faculties from permitting transgender women and girls to take part on women’ and ladies’s sports activities groups. Your letters to this point don’t cite a single case that so holds.”
On Friday, the Division of Schooling fired again, referring the case to the Division of Justice for enforcement and initiating proceedings to strip Maine’s Okay-12 faculties of federal funding—a transfer that might cripple the state’s training system.
“The Division has given Maine each alternative to return into compliance with Title IX, however the state’s leaders have stubbornly refused to take action, selecting as a substitute to prioritize an extremist ideological agenda over their college students’ security, privateness, and dignity,” mentioned Performing Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor.
He continued, “The Maine Division of Schooling will now must defend its discriminatory practices earlier than a Division administrative legislation choose and in a federal courtroom towards the Justice Division. Governor Mills would have carried out effectively to stick to the knowledge embedded within the previous idiom—watch out what you would like for. Now she is going to see the Trump Administration in courtroom.”
In February, the Division of Schooling launched an investigation into Maine’s compliance with Title IX legal guidelines after Democrat Maine Governor Janet Mills clashed with President Donald Trump at a Nationwide Governors Affiliation (NGA) assembly over organic males competing towards females. Through the assembly, she claimed that she would see Trump in courtroom to combat him over the problem.
In March, the U.S. Division of Schooling has launched an investigation into the Maine Division of Schooling over allegations that faculties within the state might have violated federal legislation by hiding scholar gender transitions from mother and father.
The probe would search for breaches of the Household Academic Rights and Privateness Act (FERPA).
The U.S. D.O.E. mentioned in a press release on the time:
This investigation comes amid stories that dozens of Maine college districts are violating or misusing FERPA by sustaining insurance policies that infringe on mother and father’ rights. The districts’ insurance policies allegedly enable for faculties to create “gender plans” supporting a scholar’s “transgender identification” after which declare these plans aren’t training data underneath FERPA and due to this fact not out there to folks.
This motion, alongside SPPO’s investigation initiated yesterday into the California Division of Schooling, is in furtherance of U.S. Secretary of Schooling Linda McMahon’s directives to strengthen FERPA enforcement by taking motion towards faculties misusing FERPA and clearing the backlog of complaints submitted to SPPO that gathered underneath the Biden Administration.
