The Department of Education on Friday referred a Title IX investigation into Maine schools to the Justice Department after the state failed to reach a resolution with the Trump administration over a finding that it violated federal anti-discrimination law by allowing transgender students to participate in girls’ sports. 

“The Department 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,” said Craig Trainor, acting assistant Education secretary for civil rights. 

The Education Department in its announcement said it will also initiate administrative proceedings to determine whether to terminate federal K-12 education funding for Maine’s state education department, including formula and discretionary grants. 

“The Maine Department of Education will now have to defend its discriminatory practices before a Department administrative law judge and in a federal court against the Justice Department,” Trainor said. “Governor [Janet] Mills would have done well to adhere to the wisdom embedded in the old idiom — be careful what you wish for. Now she will see the Trump Administration in court.” 

Both the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which recently began investigating schools and states that allow transgender athletes to compete in girls’ sports, said in March that Maine had violated Title IX, the federal civil rights law against sex discrimination that the Trump White House says prohibits trans athletes from competing on girls’ and women’s teams. 

The HHS investigation covered the Maine Department of Education, the Maine Principals’ Association and Greely High School, a school of about 700 students in the Portland suburbs. The Education Department’s findings applied only to the state education department. 

Both agencies gave Maine officials until the end of March to adopt policies barring transgender students from girls’ sports. On the last day of the month, the Department of Education issued what it called a “final warning” to Maine’s state education department, saying it would turn the investigation over to the Justice Department if the two entities did not come to an agreement by April 11. 

A spokesperson for the state education department did not immediately return a request for comment. 

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