Latest news with #MaineAttorneyGeneral'sOffice
Axios
11-04-2025
- Politics
- Axios
Maine defends transgender athletes as federal education money standoff deepens
Maine won't bar transgender athletes from competing in women's sports despite President Trump's threat to withhold federal funding, the state attorney general's office said Friday. The big picture: After Maine refused to budge, the Department of Education referred its Title IX investigation to the Department of Justice "for further enforcement action" and said it would initiate proceedings to cut federal K-12 education funding. The Trump administration has been clashing with the Democratic state's leadership as it seeks compliance with the president's executive order banning transgender women from women's sports. Driving the news: The Maine Attorney General's Office in a letter to the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights on Friday refused to sign an agreement directing the state's education agency to change its transgender athlete policy. "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," Assistant Attorney General Sarah Forster wrote in the letter, stating they would not sign the agreement. The state attorney general's office said it does not have revisions to counter propose and "we agree that we are at an impasse." What they're saying: Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said in a statement that the Department of Education "has given Maine every opportunity to come into compliance with Title IX, but the state's leaders have stubbornly refused to do so, choosing instead to prioritize an extremist ideological agenda over their students' safety, privacy, and dignity." Zoom out: Trump's executive order signed in February denies federal funding for schools that allow trans women or girls to play in capacities corresponding with their gender identity. Schools that don't abide will be considered in violation of Title IX, per the order. The latest: Also on Friday, a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order directing the U.S. Department of Agriculture to immediately unfreeze any federal funding it may have paused over Maine's alleged failure to comply with Title IX.
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Maine Attorney General's Office pushed back on Title IX investigations, emails show
Entrance of the Maine Attorney General's office in the Cross Office Building in Augusta. (Photo by Jim Neuger/ Maine Morning Star) Last month, after receiving notice that Maine was in violation of federal law for allowing transgender girls to play on girls' sports teams, the Maine Attorney General's Office pushed back on federal findings, questioning both the process and the conclusion of the investigation. But according to records obtained through a Freedom of Access Act request, the office also pointed federal officials to two proposed bills — LD 233 and LD 868 — that would ban trans athletes. Whether these bills will alter the course of the investigation is unknown, but one thing is clear: the federal government is now paying attention to these proposals. 'We have reviewed the proposed legislation at LD 233 and LD 868 that your team sent on Wednesday,' wrote Daniel Shieh, Associate Deputy Director of the Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights in an email on March 17. 'We are not prepared to stay the investigation at this time, but please let us know if those bills become law in Maine.' The two bills are among several proposals introduced this session by Republican lawmakers aimed at restricting transgender students' participation in school sports. Neither has had a public hearing yet. LD 233, sponsored by Rep. Katrina Smith of Palermo, would require student-athletes to participate in sports based on their 'biological sex' and would prohibit transgender girls from joining girls' teams in public schools. LD 868, introduced by Rep. David Haggan of Hampden, is similar in scope, reinforcing gender-based athletic categories and citing competitive fairness and safety. Republican lawmakers have urged Maine to comply with federal directives and walk back support of trans students' rights to athletics, locker rooms and bathrooms. 'This is not sustainable,' said Senate Minority Leader Trey Stewart (R-Aroostook) in a press conference on April 1. 'We're a poor state. We are heavily reliant on federal money. The governor needs to move on this.' In February, after an investigation that took a handful of days and concluded without any interviews, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights determined that Maine had violated Title IX, the federal law banning sex-based discrimination, and infringed upon the rights of cisgender girls by allowing trans girls to participate in girls sports. It held the Maine Department of Education for the violations, demanding the state change its policies. HHS claimed that the state department of education, by way of its relationship to the Maine Principal's Association and its receipt of federal funds, had violated Title IX. But the Attorney General's Office rejected the claim, arguing in a letter sent on March 4 that the federal government had overstepped its authority and mischaracterized the facts. In the letter, Assistant Attorney Generals Sarah Forster and Kimberly Patwardhan wrote that the February 21 notice from HHS 'did not specify how OCR planned to conduct its compliance review,' or explain what legal framework it would be based on, nor did it include attempts to discuss findings with the department or attorney general's office, or to reach a cooperative agreement 'No one from OCR contacted MDOE or the Maine OAG for further information or to discuss cooperation or compliance,' the letter stated, calling the entire process 'accelerated' and legally questionable. The letter also rejected the federal government's core argument — that the state department of education is responsible for policies governing high school athletics, which is overseen by the Maine Principal's Association. The attorneys stressed that the organization is a private, nonprofit corporation, not a state agency, and is neither created nor operated by the department. 'MDOE does not agree that it is in violation of Title IX, nor does it agree that OCR has laid out a sufficient factual or legal basis for such a determination,' Forster and Patwardhan wrote. Further undermining the federal claims, the letter pointed out factual inaccuracies in HHS's findings. One of the core justifications for the compliance review was that MDOE allegedly received more than $500,000 in federal assistance from the Administration for Community Living in 2024. However, that funding had already been transferred to the University of Maine at Augusta with approval from the federal agency in March 2024 — nearly a year before the review. 'There is a significant inaccuracy,' the attorneys wrote, attaching documentation to prove the transfer of funding. Shieh wrote back the next day with an amended compliance review notice, this time including the Principal's Association and Greely High School, where a trans athlete who competed on a girls team attends school. 'Although Maine claims 'MDOE is not responsible for interscholastic youth sports or athletic programs in Maine,' it distributes funds for staff salaries, school facilities, and transportation, which in turn support athletics and interscholastic competition,' the letter said. 'The fact that MDOE has ceded control over its activities to MPA does not limit its obligations under Title IX.' On March 12, HHS appears to have met with all three organizations based on the emails, and five days later, the agency sent the attorney general's office an amended determination, holding the department, the high school and the association in violation of Title IX, because they uphold the Maine Human Rights Act, which protects trans students by including gender identity among the list of protected classes. 'When a state law, such as Section 4601 of Maine's Human Rights Act, frustrates Congress's purpose and poses an obstacle to the accomplishment of those purposes, that state law is preempted,' the letter said. Rep. Michael Soboleski (R- Phillips) said he is introducing a bill to remove consideration of gender identity from the act, and asked Democrats and Mills to support the legislation in order to avoid the risk of losing federal funding. 'The problem is that the term gender identity and the Human Rights Act is being interpreted way too broadly by the left,' Stewart said in the press conference. 'And what it's saying is there's no boundary between men's and women's spaces.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Yahoo
Pennsylvania Teachers Union Admits Cyberattack That Hit 500,000 People in July
Personal records of more than a half-million people were compromised in a cyberattack that occurred last July on the Pennsylvania State Education Association. The union acknowledged the data breach this week. On March 17, the state's largest teachers union sent letters about a security data breach that occurred July 6, 2024. An investigation into the incident, completed Feb. 18, found that sensitive personal information was acquired by an 'unauthorized actor' who accessed files on the union's network, according to the letter. The letter said people's names were revealed, along with birthdates, user names and passwords, Social Security numbers, payment information, passport numbers, taxpayer identification and bank account numbers, and health insurance and medical information. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter The union refused to comment on how widespread the attack was, but a data breach tracker maintained by the Maine Attorney General's Office said 517,487 people were affected. 'We took steps, to the best of our ability and knowledge, to ensure that the data taken by the unauthorized actor was deleted,' the union said in the notification letter. Related The Rhysida ransomware gang claimed on its dark web site in September that it had carried out a cyberattack on the union. In 2023 and 2024, the same group claimed data thefts of sensitive documents from school districts in Maryland, Texas, New Jersey and Tennessee. The union, which represents 178,000 members, said in an email statement that it isn't aware of identity theft connected to the breach. 'As soon as we became aware of this incident, we engaged cybersecurity professionals with expertise in these occurrences,' the union told The 74. 'We are complying with all legal and regulatory requirements, and are providing credit monitoring for eligible individuals who were impacted by this incident.'
Yahoo
13-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Use of Maine's yellow flag law continues to be consistently high
Guns are shown at Caso's Gun-A-Rama in Jersey City, New Jersey, which has been open since 1967. (Photo by Aristide Economopoulos/NJ Monitor) Maine's yellow flag law, which has been under scrutiny since the mass shooting in Lewiston, has already been used more times this year by law enforcement agencies across the state than in the first three years after it became law in 2020. In the past six weeks, the law has been used 58 times by police departments and sheriff's offices to confiscate weapons from people with a mental health diagnosis who pose risks to their own and others' safety. That's more than the number of times law enforcement used the same law in 2020, 2021 and 2022 combined. The use of the law skyrocketed after the deadly shooting in October 2023, and remains consistently high, although some agencies rely on it more than others, according to data from the Maine Attorney General's Office. Overall, the law, formally known as a weapons restriction order, has been used 689 times to confiscate weapons. In the vast majority of cases, people who had guns taken away had threatened to kill themselves, often also threatening family members, partners and in some cases, coworkers or the general public, according to the state data. Most were also described as having mental health challenges, with a small number explicitly described as paranoid, schizophrenic or experiencing hallucinations. About a dozen people shot themselves before police intervened, and a dozen more hurt themselves using other weapons. On Wednesday, Daniel Wathen, the former chief justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court who headed the independent commission that studied the Lewiston shooting, presented some of the investigation's key findings to members of the Legislature's Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee. Among the conclusions, the commission determined that the Sagadahoc County Sheriff's Office had sufficient cause to take shooter Robert Card II into protective custody under Maine's Yellow Flag Law and to begin the process to confiscate any firearms in his possession. The yellow flag law, which was crafted by Governor Janet Mills and the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine, was passed in 2020, making Maine the only state with such a law. It allows law enforcement to temporarily confiscate firearms from people who are determined to be a danger to themselves or others. But it's been described as cumbersome by law enforcement, according to the commission report, because police have to take the person into protective custody, bring them to a facility where their mental health can be evaluated and then seek a court order to temporarily take firearms away. Even though the law has been in effect since 2020, it had been used just over 80 times prior to the shooting. Since then, more than 90 law enforcement agencies have utilized it more than 600 times. Maine State Police have used it most frequently, with 61 orders since 2020. The Sanford Police Department had the second highest number of uses. Sgt. Everett Allen said that might be because the department considers it a useful tool and has a mental health expert on staff. Androscoggin County Sheriff's Office and the Lewiston Police Department have each used the law 25 and 24 times, respectively. 'We have a mental health unit here and the ability to have that and have a clinician working with officers to help, I know that is helpful for us,' Allen said. 'Every time we've used [the yellow flag law], it's been helpful because we're removing weapons from a house or someplace that would prevent a serious likelihood of harm from someone.' The Maine Legislature passed several gun safety laws in the wake of the shooting last year, including a bill from the governor that, among other things, modified the yellow flag law by allowing police to get protective custody warrants to use at their discretion to take dangerous people into custody and remove their weapons. That law took effect in August. Another bill, which became law without the governor's signature, established a 72-hour waiting period for certain gun purchases. On Thursday a federal judge paused that rule in response to a lawsuit from local gun stores and owners that argued it was unconstitutional. In a statement in response to the ruling, Nacole Palmer, executive director for the Maine Gun Safety Coalition, argued the law would help prevent suicides in Maine. 'Three-day waiting period laws provide a brief cooling off period so someone in crisis who may be buying a gun to take their own life has time to reconsider and get help,' Palmer said. 'These laws have been upheld as constitutional in countless other states where they exist, some up to 10 days. Once again, Maine is an outlier and this ruling is an exception to established law, and it's an exception that will cost lives and cause Maine families heartbreak and loss.' The coalition is already mounting a campaign to put a stronger gun law on the ballot. Last month, the groups delivered more than 80,000 signatures to put a red flag law, which allows family members to directly appeal to courts to take firearms away from people considered to be a danger to themselves or others, on the ballot this November. During her state of the budget address, Mills criticized the initiative, citing the frequent use of the yellow flag law. Mills addressed the criticisms of the current law, including the requirement of a mental health assessment to take one's guns away. 'This law is not a burden. These are folks who are in crisis and who, thanks to the mental health assessment, are also now being connected — perhaps for the first time — to Maine's mental health system,' Mills said. 'I also don't believe a private citizen should have to navigate what can be a complex and confusing court procedure by themselves, especially in the middle of already difficult circumstances. It is the government's responsibility, not that of a private citizen, to protect the public from gun violence.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
