A Maine school district and the state’s Department of Education are accused of defying President Donald Trump’s executive order to protect women’s sports by continuing to allow boys who identify as female to compete in girls’ interscholastic athletics.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights announced Friday that it sent a letter to Maine Department of Education Commissioner Pender Makin announcing the Title IX investigation into the state agency.
In the letter, the federal education department informed MDOE that allowing males to compete in girls’ sports is considered a violation of federal antidiscrimination law. The letter highlighted Maine School Administrative District #51 as another subject of investigation following reports that Greely High School continues to let a male student compete as a girl.
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The announcement of an investigation comes after Trump’s Feb. 5 executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.”
The order directed executive agencies to take “all appropriate action to protect all-female athletic opportunities,” promising to withdraw federal funding from educational institutions that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities.
“Maine would have you believe that it has no choice in how it treats women and girls in athletics — that is, that it must follow its state laws and allow male athletes to compete against women and girls,” Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a Friday statement about the investigation.
“Let me be clear: If Maine wants to continue to receive federal funds from the Education Department, it has to follow Title IX,” Trainor added.
“If it wants to forgo federal funds and continue to trample the rights of its young female athletes, that, too, is its choice. OCR will do everything in its power to ensure taxpayers are not funding blatant civil rights violators.”
In response to the press surrounding MSAD #51, Superintendent Jeffrey Porter shared an email he sent Friday to the district community, stating that the district will abide by state law and local district policies.
“In the case of athletics, the Maine Principles’ Association (MPA), which oversees high school athletic rules statewide, has adopted the MDOE’s position in following state law,” Porter wrote. “There are continued legalities around how this executive order could affect federal funding to school districts, but this issue rests with the state and not local school districts.”
The superintendent disclosed that the district intends to follow the direction of the MDOE and MPA until it is told to do otherwise. According to Porter’s email, the superintendent contacted the Department of Education as recently as Friday.
At the time of the email, the superintendent said that there are “no anticipated changes in the state’s direction in the near future.”
The Maine Department of Education and MSAD #51 Superintendent Jeffrey Porter did not immediately respond to The Christian Post’s request for comment.
The state’s approach to the issue of women’s sports received media attention after Republican State Rep. Laurel Libby shared a photo on social media last week of a male Greely High School student competing on a girls’ track team.
“Another day, another instance of an unremarkable biological male athlete (who couldn’t win against other males) dominating girls’ sports,” Libby wrote in an X post last week.
According to the state representative, the male student won the girl’s pole-vaulting state championship in Maine after tying for fifth place last year in the boys’ Class B pole vault. Libby asserted that the situation is “unfair” to hardworking female athletes.
“I would never allow my son to participate in girls sports. It is unfair. And Maine people know that,” Libby told Maine’s Total Coverage about her decision to share the photos online. “And so, I can’t imagine a scenario where a photo of my child would be posted as participating in a sport with the opposite gender competing as that gender.”
During an event at the White House last Friday, Trump called out Maine Gov. Janet Mills and threatened to pull federal funding from her state for not complying with his executive order banning men in women’s sports.
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: samantha.kamman@christianpost.com. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
