Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey (D) filed a lawsuit Monday against the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), challenging the agency’s recent decision to withhold federal funding from the state for refusing to comply with the Trump administration’s directive to ban transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports in schools.
The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the District of Maine, claims that the USDA’s funding freeze is “blatantly unlawful” and directly undermines the state’s ability to provide meals to students enrolled in school nutrition programs.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, who is named as a defendant, stated last week that the funding pause would only affect “certain administrative and technological functions in schools” and not actual feeding programs.
In a letter to Maine Governor Janet Mills (D), with whom former President Trump has publicly clashed, Rollins warned that the freeze “is only the beginning.”
The USDA has not returned requests for comment.
However, the lawsuit claims that Rollins’ statement is misleading and that the freeze has already disrupted child-feeding programs.
According to the complaint, Maine’s Child Nutrition Program, which is part of the state’s Department of Education, lost access to key federal funds the day after Rollins sent his letter.
These included administrative funds used to pay staff who manage programs such as the Child and Adult Care Food Program, which serves meals to young children, at-risk youth, and adults in daycare.
The lawsuit states that without funding, “providers will have to cease operations and children (and vulnerable adults) will not be fed.”
The lawsuit also alleges that the USDA violated the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to provide Maine with formal notice of any noncompliance with Title IX before freezing funds.
The agency did not conduct an investigation, hold a hearing, issue formal findings, or report to Congress as required by law.
Furthermore, the lawsuit claims that Rollins provided “no legal basis” for her interpretation of Title IX and that it is incorrect.
It notes that several federal courts have ruled that Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause protect transgender girls and women’s rights to participate in girls’ and women’s sports, respectively.
Last month, the US Departments of Education and Health and Human Services concluded that Maine had violated Title IX, citing politically motivated investigations, as Governor Mills has described.
Following those findings, the Education Department issued a “final warning” to the Maine Department of Education, threatening to refer the case to the Justice Department if the state failed to comply.
In a statement issued Monday, Frey claimed that the administration is unjustly withholding funds intended to feed Maine’s children “under the banner of keeping children safe.”
“This is just another example where no law or consequence appears to restrain the administration as it seeks capitulation to its lawlessness,” Frey told reporters.
“The President and his cabinet secretaries do not make the law, and they are not above the law, and this action is necessary to remind the President that Maine will not be bullied into violating the law.”
