Inside hours of Maine Gov. Janet Mills publicly confronting President Donald Trump on the White Home after he tried to bully her into complying together with his administration’s ban on transgender athletes in ladies’s sports activities, the U.S. Division of Training launched a federal investigation into the state’s compliance with Title IX.
On Friday afternoon, the division’s Workplace for Civil Rights notified Maine Training Commissioner Pender Makin that it had opened an investigation into the Maine Division of Training and Maine Faculty Administrative District #51. The probe focuses on the state’s insurance policies permitting transgender college students to compete in class sports, which OCR claims might violate Title IX protections for ladies’s sports activities, in keeping with a division press release.
The transfer got here after Mills stood as much as Trump on the Nationwide Governors Affiliation assembly Friday morning. Trump, singling out Mills throughout a televised press occasion, demanded that Maine comply together with his govt order barring transgender athletes from competing in women’ and ladies’s sports activities or danger shedding federal funding.
“I’m complying with state and federal legal guidelines,” Mills responded.
Trump then mentioned, “Effectively—I’m—we’re the federal regulation. You higher do it as a result of in any other case, you’re not going to get any federal funding in any respect when you don’t.”
Mills, unfazed, replied: “We’ll see you in court docket.” Hours later, the governor’s workplace issued a press launch in response to the newly introduced investigation. Mills denounced the probe as political retaliation, warning that Trump is utilizing federal energy to punish states that refuse to conform together with his agenda.
“No President—Republican or Democrat—can withhold federal funding approved and appropriated by Congress and paid for by Maine taxpayers in an try to coerce somebody into compliance together with his will,” Mills mentioned. “It’s a violation of our Structure and of our legal guidelines, which I took an oath to uphold.”
She warned that Maine is just the primary goal.
“Who and what is going to he goal subsequent? Will or not it’s you? Will or not it’s due to your race or your faith? Will or not it’s since you look completely different or assume in another way? The place does it finish?” Mills requested.
She added, “In America, the President is neither a King nor a dictator, as a lot as this one tries to behave prefer it – and it’s the rule of regulation that forestalls him from being so.”
LGBTQ+ advocates condemned the administration’s actions.
“Gov. Mills is standing up for all Maine college students. HRC stands with Gov. Mills,” a Human Rights Marketing campaign spokesperson instructed The Advocate.
Earlier within the day, Maine Legal professional Normal Aaron Frey vowed to struggle the investigation in court docket, calling it an “unlawful and politically motivated try” to pressure the state into discrimination.
“Luckily, the rule of regulation nonetheless applies on this nation, and I’ll do every little thing in my energy to defend Maine’s legal guidelines and block efforts by the President to bully and threaten us,” Frey mentioned.
The White Home and the Division of Training didn’t instantly reply to The Advocate’s request for remark.
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