Maine is suing the Trump administration over frozen funds used to feed schoolchildren and vulnerable adults.
In his 20-page lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court, Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey called Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’ decision last week to freeze the funds not only “arbitrary and capricious,” but also “blatantly illegal.”
On Tuesday, Rollins informed Gov. Janet Mills in a letter that the U.S. Department of Agriculture was freezing funds to support educational programs in Maine.
“You cannot openly violate federal law against discrimination in education and expect federal funding to continue unabated,” said Rollins, who noted that “this is just the beginning.”
That freeze affects the salaries for workers who administer school food programs.
In his lawsuit, Frey noted that this freeze affects the Maine Department of Education’s Child Nutrition Program, which administers the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program. Additionally, that freeze affects other programs that feed day care children, at-risk youth outside school hours and adults in care settings.
“Under the banner of keeping children safe, the Trump Administration is illegally withholding grant funds that go to keeping children fed,” Attorney General Frey said in a statement. “This is just another example where no law or consequence appears to restrain the administration as it seeks capitulation to its lawlessness. The President and his cabinet secretaries do not make the law and they are not above the law, and this action is necessary to remind the President that Maine will not be bullied into violating the law.”
The attorney general noted that Rollins exceeded her authority and failed to follow the statutory and regulatory process to freeze funds over alleged noncompliance with Title IX. Frey said that settling the interpretation of Title IX isn’t necessary in this case, but rather to determine whether Rollins followed the legal steps to withhold federal funds under it.
Frey is asking U.S. District Court to issue a temporary restraining order and injunction to prevent the USDA from freezing those funds.
It’s the latest salvo in the escalating six-week-old fight between Maine and the Trump administration over transgender athletes.
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In February, President Donald Trump signed an executive order seeking to ban transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports, a move that prompted the NCAA to change its policy.
That month Trump singled out Maine during a Republican governors meeting in Washington. The next day Trump and Mills crossed paths at an event at the White House. In a heated exchange, Trump pressed Mills on the state’s policy toward transgender athletes and the governor told the president that she would “see you in court.”
Since then, the Trump administration has subjected the state to a flurry of investigations centered on policies toward transgender students, mostly around a novel and untested interpretation of the anti-discrimination statute Title IX. The administration alleges allowing transgender athletes to play alongside girls and women violates their civil and equal opportunity rights.
The USDA began a Title IX investigation into Maine in February.
The Maine Principals’ Association oversees scholastic sports for 151 public and private schools, and since 2021, it has advised schools to adhere to the Maine Human Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on gender identity, when it comes to allowing transgender students to participate in sports.
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Transgender students make up just a small fraction of all athletes in the state. Between 2013 and 2021, the Maine Principals’ Association heard from 56 trans students wishing to participate on a high school sports team consistent with their gender identity, only four of whom were trans girls. During the 2024 school year, there were just two.
For the 2023-24 school year, about 45,000 students participated in high school sports in Maine, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. (That does count students who participated in two or more sports multiple times.)
Maine faces a deadline this week from the U.S. Department of Education’s civil rights unit to comply with Trump’s executive order. The agency informed its Maine counterpart last week that if it fails to do so by Friday, the state could face sanction or the alleged Title IX violation will be referred to the U.S. Department of Justice, which has already received a Title IX referral from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has threatened to sue Maine over any alleged Title IX violations.
