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By Nate Raymond and Jack Queen
(Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump's administration on Friday moved to cut off all federal education funding for Maine's public schools after state officials said they would not comply with demands that it ban transgender athletes from girls' sports teams.
The U.S. Department of Education's announcement came shortly before a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking the U.S. Department of Agriculture from cutting off federal school lunch funding over the same issue.
The Education Department said it would initiate an administrative proceeding to terminate the state's federal K-12 education funding. The state had received about $250 million in such funding.
It said it was also referring its Title IX investigation into the Maine Department of Education to the U.S. Department of Justice for a potential enforcement action.
Trump's administration has taken a series of actions against Maine since Democratic Governor Janet Mills clashed with the Republican over the issue of transgender athletes during a White House event in February.
During the February 21 meeting with governors, Trump threatened to withhold funds from Maine if it did not comply with an executive order he signed banning transgender athletes from playing girls' and women's sports.
Mills responded: "We're going to follow the law, sir. We'll see you in court."
The Education Department's action on Friday came after the agency's Office for Civil Rights last month alleged that education officials in the state were violating the Title IX federal anti-discrimination law by allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls' sports and use girls' facilities.
Maine officials have declined to comply with Trump's demands. Maine legislators in 2021 updated a state law to explicitly prohibit discrimination based on gender identity.
"Nothing in Title IX or its implementing regulations prohibits schools from allowing transgender girls and women to participate on girls' and women's sports teams," Sarah Forster, an assistant state attorney general, wrote in a letter to the Education Department earlier on Friday.
Earlier in the week, the state had sued to block USDA from cutting off grant money the state uses for nutrition programs as it announced it would do last week. U.S. District Judge John Woodcock Jr issued a temporary restraining order blocking USDA from doing so on Friday.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond and Jack Queen; Editing by Will Dunham and Himani Sarkar)
