The Maine organization that oversees high school athletic competition has pushed back against the Trump administration claiming that it is in violation of federal civil rights law, arguing in a letter that the federal government does not have the authority to investigate its policies.
On Monday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights concluded that the Maine Principals’ Association was in violation of Title IX, the landmark civil rights law barring sex discrimination in educational programs, by allowing transgender girls to compete in girls’ sports.
The agency previously determined that the Maine Department of Education violated Title IX last month before expanding the scope of its inquiry to also include the Maine Principals’ Association and Greely High School in Cumberland, where a transgender girl recently won a girls’ track meet, setting off a chain of events that prompted President Donald Trump to crack down on Maine.
Greely was also found in violation on Monday. The federal government has since given the three targets of its investigation 10 days to agree to change their policies, which state officials have so far refused to do because they said it would violate state law. If they continue to refuse, the U.S. Department of Justice could try to force the changes by filing a lawsuit.
On Tuesday, however, an attorney for the Maine Principals’ Association sent the federal agency a letter claiming that it did not have the jurisdiction to investigate or bring litigation against the organization because it receives no federal funds, according to a copy of the letter.
“Specifically, the entity being investigated must be a recipient of federal financial assistance and with regard to this investigation specifically, HHS,” the attorney, James Belleau of Trafton, Matzen, Belleau & Frenette in Auburn, wrote.
Because the Maine Principals’ Association is not a recipient, he stated, the federal government should dismiss the review.
The federal government’s March 17 determination that the Maine Principals’ Association had violated the law stated that the government had jurisdiction over the organization because the state’s education department “has ceded its authority in the area of interscholastic athletic competition at the high school level” to the organization, according to the document, and the state receives federal funding from U.S. HHS.
Legal experts have cast doubt on the Trump administration’s legal reasoning that Maine’s practices violate Title IX, saying no court case has interpreted the federal law to require the exclusion of transgender students from sports. The Trump administration’s actions in Maine are intended to force compliance with the president’s executive order banning transgender women from competing in women’s sports. There are only two transgender girls playing high school sports in Maine, according to the Maine Principals’ Association, and none at Maine’s public universities.
Jared Bornstein, a spokesman for the Maine Principals’ Association, said the organization has yet to receive a response from the federal government.
While the organization is not subject to the authority of the federal government’s enforcement actions, it is still dedicated to the principles of Title IX, he said in a statement.
“Until recently, our policy aligned with both Title IX and the Maine Human Rights Act
which has been and always will be our intention. The entities who govern the content of Title IX
and the MHRA are the responsible parties to resolving that conflict,” he stated.
Bornstein told the Bangor Daily News that U.S. HHS conducted no interviews with the Maine Principals’ Association before reaching a determination that it had violated federal law. The same was true for Maine School Administrative District 51, which includes Greely High School, said its superintendent, Jeff Porter.
“No one from USDOE or USDHHS ever reached out to discuss this further or interview me or anyone else in MSAD 51,” Porter said in an email on Tuesday, also referring to a parallel Title IX investigation into the district by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.
Similarly, no state officials were interviewed when the federal health agency found the state’s education department in violation of Title IX on Feb. 25, the BDN previously reported.
However, lawyers from the state, the school district and the Maine Principals’ Association met with U.S. HHS officials last week to discuss resolving the matter through an agreement. State officials refused to accept the federal government’s terms, the Trump administration said.
In addition to issuing a letter of violation on Monday, the administration gave Maine officials 10 days to change its policies by signing a written agreement that would also require the state to return nearly $187,000 in funds it has received from the health and human services agency.
Reporter Callie Ferguson may be reached at cferguson@bangordailynews.com.