The federal District Court of Maine (John A. Woodcock, Jr.) has stopped the Department of Agriculture from cutting off federal funds for schools in Maine based on alleged violation of Title IX without following the due process required by the Administrative Procedures Act.
The Secretary of Agriculture had frozen nutrition and other funds on the grounds that Maine’s policies regarding transgender student athletes violate the anti-discrimination provisions of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The Secretary’s letter followed a public dispute between President Trump and Governor Janet Mills at a luncheon in the White House. The Secretary’s letter also said the Department is also reviewing “all research and education-related funding in Maine.”
The Court found that the federal government had waived sovereign immunity; the claim was reviewable under the APA; the state was likely to succeed on the merits of its claim that the freeze was not done in accordance with Title IX; the state was likely to suffer irreparable harm; and the balance of equities favored the state. The Court ordered the Department “to immediately unfreeze and release … any federal funding that they have frozen or failed or refused to pay” and barred it from “freezing, terminating, or otherwise interfering with the State’s future federal funding for alleged violations of Title IX without complying with the legally required procedure.” (Maine v. U.S. Department of Agriculture, D. ME, No. 1:25-cv-00131, 4/11/25.)
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