Maine trans athlete battle: State universities comply with adjust to Trump
The U.S. Department of Agriculture introduced Wednesday that the University of Maine System (UMS) has agreed to adjust to President Donald Trump’s executive order to maintain transgender athletes out of ladies’s sports activities.
UMS, a community of eight public universities in Maine, was topic to a temporary pause in funding from the USDA final week throughout an ongoing battle between the state and the federal authorities over trans inclusion in girls’s and ladies sports activities. The funding was reinstated simply days later.
The USDA now claims the usis in full compliance with Trump’s govt order.
TRUMP ADMIN RESPONDS TO MAINE’S RELUCTANCE TO BAN TRANS ATHLETES FROM GIRLS SPORTS
“After the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) initiated a Title IX compliance review regarding federal funding, the University of Maine System (UMaine) has clearly communicated its compliance with Title IX’s requirement to protect equal opportunities for women and girls to compete in safe and fair sports, as articulated in President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order,” the USDA stated in its announcement.
“Any false claim by the UMaine can, and will, result in onerous and even potentially criminal financial liability.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture Jamie L. Whitten Federal Building entrance signal. (Getty Images)
UMS Chancellor Dannel Malloy offered an announcement to Fox News Digital, saying the system is “relieved” to have come to an understanding with the USDA.
“The University of Maine System has always maintained its compliance with state and federal laws and with NCAA rules, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture also affirmed in a press release today,” stated Chancellor Malloy.
“We are relieved to put the Department’s Title IX compliance review behind us so the land-grant University of Maine and our statewide partners can continue to leverage USDA and other essential federal funds to strengthen and grow our natural resource economy and dependent rural communities through world-class education, research and extension.”
The scholar rec middle on the University of Maine (Edwin Remsburg/VW Pics through Getty Images)
In fiscal yr 2024 alone, the USDA awarded $29.78 million in funding to UMS for analysis, the system stated. The USDA claims it has offered over $100 million to the usin current years in a letter addressed to the system.
The NCAA additionally amended its gender eligibility coverage to ban any athlete born biologically male from competing in girls’s sports activities.
Trump initially vowed to chop funding to Maine particularly if it continued to permit trans athletes to compete in ladies sports activities throughout a gathering of GOP governors on the White House Feb. 20.
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The subsequent day, Gov. Janet Mills’ workplace responded with an announcement threatening authorized motion towards the Trump administration if it withheld federal funding from the state. Then Trump and Mills verbally sparred in a extensively publicized argument on the White House throughout a bipartisan assembly of governors.
Just hours after that interplay, the U.S. Department of Education introduced it could investigate the state for permitting transgender athletes to compete in ladies sports activities and for potential Title IX violations.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has already decided that the state and its Department of Education violated Title IX by permitting transgender athletes to compete and warned that it’s going to make a referral to the U.S. Department of Justice if the state doesn’t present a written settlement to adjust to Trump’s govt order.
“What HHS is asking of the Maine Department of Education, the Maine Principals’ Association (MPA) and Greely High School is simple — protect female athletes’ rights. Girls deserve girls-only sports without male competitors. And if Maine won’t come to the table to voluntarily comply with Title IX, HHS will enforce Title IX to the fullest extent permitted by the law,” OCR appearing Director Anthony Archeval stated in an announcement to Fox News Digital.
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