DOJ sues Maine over refusing to comply with transgender athlete ban
Governor Janet Mills, a Democrat, has
repeatedly challenged the administration's interpretation of federal law on the issue and contend that the participation of trans athletes is protected by state statutes.
In a statement, Mills called the lawsuit part of a 'campaign to pressure the State of Maine to ignore the Constitution and abandon the rule of law.'
Get Starting Point
A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.
Enter Email
Sign Up
'For nearly two months, Maine has endured recriminations from the Federal government that have targeted hungry school kids, hardworking fishermen, senior citizens, new parents, and countless Maine people,' Mills said.
Advertisement
'We have been subject to politically motivated investigations that opened and closed without discussion, leaving little doubt that their outcomes were predetermined. Let today serve as warning to all states: Maine might be among the first to draw the ire of the Federal government in this way, but we will not be the last,' she said.
The lawsuit, which names the Maine Department of Education as the defendant, accuses the state of flouting Title IX - the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in education programs receiving federal funding.
Advertisement
It seeks a court order directing the department to bar transgender athletes and to establish a compensation program for 'female athletes who have been denied equal athletic opportunities,' including potential adjustments to past athletic records.
'We are also considering retroactively pulling all of the funding they have received for not complying in the past,' Bondi said, though the Justice Department's legal filings make no mention of that proposed remedy.
The government's filings referenced a handful of incidents in which transgender athletes bested competitors at athletic events in the state, including a high school-level track meet in February in which a trans contender placed first in the pole vault competition.
Mills has said there are two transgender athletes currently competing in girls' sports in Maine.
Wednesday's lawsuit is the third legal action the Justice Department has brought challenging laws or policies in a Democratic state since President Trump took office in January, and is the latest salvo in a widening retaliatory campaign waged by the White House since Trump publicly confronted Mills on the issue during a meeting in February.
At a news conference, Bondi was joined by US Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Riley Gaines, the conservative activist and former University of Kentucky swimmer who has emerged as a leading voice of opposition against the inclusion of transgender women in female sports.
'I'm frustrated that we have to be here - that we as women have to stand before you all on national television demanding equal opportunities. This isn't progress,' Gaines said of support for trans athletes. 'I would describe this as a betrayal.'
Advertisement
Trump signed an executive order in February banning trans athletes from women's sports and denying federal funding to schools that allow them to participate. He challenged Mills at a National Governors Association event weeks later, demanding that Maine comply with the order.
'You'd better do it,' Trump said. 'You'd better do it, because you're not going to get any federal funding at all if you don't.'
Mills responded, 'See you in court.'
Since then, Maine has been subjected to unusual and overlapping investigations and efforts to withdraw federal funding for a range of programs, including marine research, school lunches and Agriculture Department grants to the University of Maine.
Three federal agencies announced investigations into what they called possible violations of Title IX in Maine within 24 hours of Trump's public confrontation with Mills. And in less than a month, two of those probes concluded that entities in the state, including Maine's Department of Education, were violating federal antidiscrimination law, and they were ordered to change their policy within 10 days or risk referral to the Justice Department.
The Social Security Administration ordered the termination of two data-collection contracts in February used to combat fraudulent spending in the state. The Washington Post has reported that when the SSA's acting commissioner, Leland Dudek, was warned by his staff that doing so would mean that 'improper payments will go up,' Dudek responded in an email that the decision would also deny funds to Mills, whom he described as a 'petulant child' who had been 'disrespectful' and 'unprofessional' toward the president.
Many of the cuts have been rolled back or paused through intervention from Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, or orders from federal courts. Last week, Maine won a victory when a judge blocked the Department of Agriculture from halting funding to nutrition programs in the state's schools over alleged Title IX violations.
Advertisement
The conflict ratcheted up again on Friday as the US Education Department told the state that it would pull all federal education funding if Maine refused to sign an agreement bringing its policies into line with Trump administration objectives.
State officials again refused.
'Nothing in Title IX or its implementing regulations prohibits schools from allowing transgender girls and women to participate on girls' and women's sports teams,' wrote Maine's assistant attorney general, Sarah Forster. In fact, she wrote, various courts have found the opposite - that federal law 'require[s] schools to allow such participation.'
McMahon, the federal education secretary, balked at that conclusion Wednesday.
'I hope Governor Mills will recognize that her political feud with the president will deprive the students in her state of much more than the right to fair sporting events,' she said.
The impasse — now capped by the Justice Department's lawsuit — could prove politically risky for both parties. Trump campaigned against the inclusion of transgender athletes in sports last year and, since taking office, has ordered the federal government to abandon considerations of gender identity in favor of a narrow definition of biological sex.
Maine law was amended in 2021 to protect against discrimination on the basis of gender identity, a statute state leaders have repeatedly cited in defense of transgender participation in school sports. Mills said last month that the law is 'worthy of debate,' but she has insisted it can't simply be changed just because Trump wishes it so.
Advertisement
'This is not just about who can compete on the athletic field,' she said in her statement Wednesday. 'This is about whether a President can force compliance with his will, without regard for the rule of law that governs our nation. I believe he cannot.'
In Maine, views of the fight tend to break down along partisan lines, said Dan Shea, a political scientist at Colby College. While Trump's staunch supporters agree with his approach, others say the onslaught of federal government actions has left state residents feeling attacked.
'Our dander is up a bit,' Shea said. There's a sense of, 'How dare you threaten our state this way?'
Lance Dutson, a Republican political consultant in Maine, said that while Mills may have a well-founded legal argument, the underlying controversy is such an emotive one that it may not matter.
'The stark reality is that Governor Mills is on the wrong side of the issue from a public opinion standpoint,' Dutson said, pointing to polls that show a majority of Americans oppose transgender athletes in women's sports.
If the Trump administration does ultimately cut federal funding to Maine, Dutson said, it will be tough for Mills 'to escape the idea that her position on women's sports and Title IX is the reason.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
San Francisco Chronicle
7 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Elon Musk deletes anti-Trump posts as president warns of ‘serious consequences'
Elon Musk has quietly removed several high-profile posts on his social media platform, X, that directly criticized President Donald Trump, signaling a possible deescalation in a feud that exploded into public view this week. Among the deleted posts were Musk's accusations linking Trump to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as well as a now-vanished endorsement of a user's call for Trump's impeachment and replacement with Vice President JD Vance. The deletions were discovered Saturday morning, though it remains unclear why Musk removed the posts. On Thursday, Musk claimed that without him, Trump would not have secured the presidency, setting off threats from Trump to cut off government contracts with Musk's companies, including Starlink and Space X. 'Time to drop the really big bomb,' Musk replied. '@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!' The X page that once hosted Musk's post now displays a generic error message: ' page doesn't exist. Try searching for something else.' Musk had also replied 'yes' to a user's post calling for Trump's impeachment. By Saturday morning, that post had also been removed. The posts had marked a sharp escalation in the rift between Musk and Trump, who were once closely aligned. Trump purchased a red Tesla Model S in March and, just last week, appeared at a White House event alongside Musk, where he presented him with a ceremonial golden key to the nation. The alliance began to crack after Musk publicly criticized a sweeping GOP-backed budget measure, the 'Big Beautiful Bill,' which he said did not include the reforms he had championed while leading the Department of Government Efficiency under Trump. On Thursday, Musk called on Trump to 'ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill.' Trump, in turn, dismissed Musk's opposition and suggested cutting off federal subsidies and contracts with Musk's companies. 'The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,' the president wrote on Truth Social. In an interview with NBC News on Saturday, Trump warned of 'very serious consequences' if Musk were to fund Democratic candidates in retaliation. 'He'll have to pay the consequences for that,' Trump said, though he declined to elaborate. Trump added that Musk was being 'disrespectful to the office of the President.' He added, 'I think it's a very bad thing.' Asked whether he intended to mend the relationship, Trump responded simply: 'No.'
CNN
8 minutes ago
- CNN
Study shows young men are bailing on Democrats
A new study shows young men have moved away from Democrats in 2024. Ilyse Hogue, co-founder of the Speaking with American Men Project, tells Michael Smerconish that while many men still support progressive values, they don't always see themselves represented in the Democratic party.
12 minutes ago
A US territory's colonial history emerges in state disputes over voting and citizenship
WHITTIER, Alaska -- Squeezed between glacier-packed mountains and Alaska's Prince William Sound, the cruise-ship stop of Whittier is isolated enough that it's reachable by just a single road, through a long, one-lane tunnel that vehicles share with trains. It's so small that nearly all its 260 residents live in the same 14-story condo building. But Whittier also is the unlikely crossroads of two major currents in American politics: fighting over what it means to be born on U.S. soil and false claims by President Donald Trump and others that noncitizen voter fraud is widespread. In what experts describe as an unprecedented case, Alaska prosecutors are pursuing felony charges against 11 residents of Whittier, most of them related to one another, saying they falsely claimed U.S. citizenship when registering or trying to vote. The defendants were all born in American Samoa, an island cluster in the South Pacific roughly halfway between Hawaii and New Zealand. It's the only U.S. territory where residents are not automatically granted citizenship by virtue of having been born on American soil, as the Constitution dictates. Instead, by a quirk of geopolitical history, they are considered 'U.S. nationals' — a distinction that gives them certain rights and obligations while denying them others. American Samoans are entitled to U.S. passports and can serve in the military. Men must register for the Selective Service. They can vote in local elections in American Samoa but cannot hold public office in the U.S. or participate in most U.S. elections. Those who wish to become citizens can do so, but the process costs hundreds of dollars and can be cumbersome. 'To me, I'm an American. I was born an American on U.S. soil,' said firefighter Michael Pese, one of those charged in Whittier. 'American Samoa has been U.S. soil, U.S. jurisdiction, for 125 years. According to the supreme law of the land, that's my birthright.' The status has created confusion in other states, as well. In Oregon, officials inadvertently registered nearly 200 American Samoan residents to vote when they got their driver's licenses under the state's motor-voter law. Of those, 10 cast ballots in an election, according to the Oregon Secretary of State's office. Officials there determined the residents had not intended to break the law and no crime was committed. In Hawaii, one resident who was born in American Samoa, Sai Timoteo, ran for the state Legislature in 2018 before learning she wasn't allowed to hold public office or vote. She had always considered it her civic duty to vote, and the form on the voting materials had one box to check: 'U.S. Citizen/U.S. National.' 'I checked that box my entire life,' she said. She also avoided charges, and Hawaii subsequently changed its form to make it more clear. Amid the storm of executive orders issued by Trump in the early days of his second term was one that sought to redefine birthright citizenship by barring it for children of parents who are in the U.S. unlawfully. Another would overhaul how federal elections are run, among other changes requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship. Courts so far have blocked both orders. The Constitution says that 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.' It also leaves the administration of elections to the states. The case in Whittier began with Pese's wife, Tupe Smith. After the couple moved to Whittier in 2018, Smith began volunteering at the Whittier Community School, where nearly half of the 55 students were American Samoan — many of them her nieces and nephews. She would help the kids with their English, tutor them in reading and cook them Samoan dishes. In 2023, a seat on the regional school board came open and she ran for it. She was the only candidate and won with about 95% of the vote. One morning a few weeks later, as she was making her two children breakfast, state troopers came knocking. They asked about her voting history. She explained that she knew she wasn't allowed to vote in U.S. presidential elections, but thought she could vote in local or state races. She said she checked a box affirming that she was a U.S. citizen at the instruction of elections workers because there was no option to identify herself as a U.S. national, court records say. The troopers arrested her and drove her to a women's prison near Anchorage. She was released that day after her husband paid bail. 'When they put me in cuffs, my son started crying," Smith told The Associated Press. "He told their dad that he don't want the cops to take me or to lock me up.' About 10 months later, troopers returned to Whittier and issued court summonses to Pese, eight other relatives and one man who was not related but came from the same American Samoa village as Pese. One of Smith's attorneys, Neil Weare, grew up in another U.S. territory, Guam, and is the co-founder of the Washington-based Right to Democracy Project, whose mission is 'confronting and dismantling the undemocratic colonial framework governing people in U.S. territories.' He suggested the prosecutions are aimed at 'low-hanging fruit' in the absence of evidence that illegal immigrants frequently cast ballots in U.S. elections. Even state-level investigations have found voting by noncitizens to be exceptionally rare. 'There is no question that Ms. Smith lacked an intent to mislead or deceive a public official in order to vote unlawfully when she checked 'U.S. citizen' on voter registration materials,' he wrote in a brief to the Alaska Court of Appeals last week, after a lower court judge declined to dismiss the charges. Prosecutors say her false claim of citizenship was intentional, and her claim to the contrary was undercut by the clear language on the voter application forms she filled out in 2020 and 2022. The forms said that if the applicant did not answer yes to being over 18 years old and a U.S. citizen, 'do not complete this form, as you are not eligible to vote.' The unique situation of American Samoans dates to the 19th century, when the U.S. and European powers were seeking to expand their colonial and economic interests in the South Pacific. The U.S. Navy secured the use of Pago Pago Harbor in eastern Samoa as a coal-refueling station for military and commercial vessels, while Germany sought to protect its coconut plantations in western Samoa. Eventually the archipelago was divided, with the western islands becoming the independent nation of Samoa and the eastern ones becoming American Samoa, overseen by the Navy. The leaders of American Samoa spent much of the late 19th and early 20th centuries arguing that its people should be U.S. citizens. Birthright citizenship was eventually afforded to residents of other U.S. territories — Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. Congress considered it for American Samoa in the 1930s, but declined. Some lawmakers cited financial concerns during the Great Depression while others expressed patently racist objections, according to a 2020 article in the American Journal of Legal History. Supporters of automatic citizenship say it would particularly benefit the estimated 150,000 to 160,000 nationals who live in the states, many of them in California, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, Utah and Alaska. 'We pay taxes, we do exactly the same as everybody else that are U.S. citizens,' Smith said. 'It would be nice for us to have the same rights as everybody here in the states.' But many in American Samoa eventually soured on the idea, fearing that extending birthright citizenship would jeopardize its customs — including the territory's communal land laws. Island residents could be dispossessed by land privatization, not unlike what happened in Hawaii, said Siniva Bennett, board chair of the Samoa Pacific Development Corporation, a Portland, Oregon-based nonprofit. 'We've been able to maintain our culture, and we haven't been divested from our land like a lot of other indigenous people in the U.S.,' Bennett said. In 2021, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to extend automatic citizenship to those born in American Samoa, saying it would be wrong to force citizenship on those who don't want it. The Supreme Court declined to review the decision. Several jurisdictions across the country, including San Francisco and the District of Columbia, allow people who are not citizens to vote in certain local elections. Tafilisaunoa Toleafoa, with the Pacific Community of Alaska, said the situation has been so confusing that her organization reached out to the Alaska Division of Elections in 2021 and 2022 to ask whether American Samoans could vote in state and local elections. Neither time did it receive a direct answer, she said. 'People were telling our community that they can vote as long as you have your voter registration card and it was issued by the state,' she said. Finally, last year, Carol Beecher, the head of the state Division of Elections, sent Toleafoa's group a letter saying American Samoans are not eligible to vote in Alaska elections. But by then, the voting forms had been signed. 'It is my hope that this is a lesson learned, that the state of Alaska agrees that this could be something that we can administratively correct,' Toleafoa said. 'I would say that the state could have done that instead of prosecuting community members.'
