AUGUSTA, Maine — Regulators have no plans to take action against school districts siding with President Donald Trump in his monthslong battle with Gov. Janet Mills over Maine’s protections for transgender students.
Two districts, based in Livermore Falls and the Aroostook County town of Hodgdon, have taken action to change their interpretations of federal civil rights laws to prohibit transgender students from using bathrooms and competing in sports according to their gender identities. It’s unclear how many transgender students are in the districts.
The stance is in line with an executive order that the Republican president issued in February. But all of the other school districts here follow the Maine Human Rights Act, a longstanding law that bars gender identity-based discrimination in education and other public settings, on that issue.
The law is enforced by the Maine Human Rights Commission, which usually investigates potential violations when it gets complaints. The commission is allowed to initiate its own investigations, but that is a rare situation only invoked once every few years on average, Kit Thomson Crossman, the agency’s executive director, said.
“The Commission has no current plans to take independent action against any school district,” they said Tuesday.
The state appears to be in a holding pattern after the fight with Trump, which began with his February confrontation at an event with the Democratic governor in Washington and led to investigations and funding interruptions. The Justice Department sued the state over the issue in April. The case is scheduled to go to trial next spring.
Mills has defended the state’s laws and spoken out against Trump’s targeting of Maine. But she has been restrained in policy discussions on the issue, saying in April that it was not her job to give legal advice to Hodgdon’s school district after it turned against state law.
Drummond Woodsum, the firm that represents most Maine school districts, has advised boards to stick with state law and not Trump’s interpretation of Title IX, the landmark 1972 law barring gender-based discrimination. Legal experts have questioned the president’s untested legal case, which is likely to be settled in the Maine court case or others like it.
Jacob Posik, the director of legislative affairs at the conservative Maine Policy Institute, which has offshoots that have advised school boards on these policies, said the active court cases are likely weighing on the commission’s stance. He called its posture “wise.”
“I suspect that it would be premature for them to take action,” Posik said.
Daniel O’Connor is a Report for America corps member who covers rural politics as part of the partnership between the Bangor Daily News and The Maine Monitor, with additional support from BDN and Monitor readers.