The US Division of Agriculture is pausing funding to the College of Maine System (UMS), a community of eight public schools within the state, based on UMS officers.
The pause is in response to the state’s current refusal to adjust to President Donald Trump’s government order to maintain transgender athletes out of ladies’s sports activities.
The pause in funding comes because the USDA opinions potential Title IX and Title VI violations by the schools, amid the state’s current refusal to adjust to Trump’s government order to maintain transgender athletes out of ladies’s sports activities.
Trump reaffirmed his intent to punish states that proceed to permit trans athletes to compete with women throughout his March 4 handle to a joint session of Congress.
Trump’s administration has now acted on that promise.
A UMS spokesperson confirmed to Fox Information Digital on Tuesday it has been notified its funding might be paused.
“An email forwarded to the University of Maine that appears to have originated from the USDA’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer directs the department’s ‘awarding agencies and staff offices to temporarily no longer issue any payments or authorize any other releases of funding to Columbia University or the University of Maine System,’” the spokesperson mentioned.
“The message goes on to state, ‘This pause is temporary in nature while USDA evaluates if it should take any follow-on actions related to prospective Title VI or Title IX violations. Please take any necessary actions to effectuate this direction from leadership. This pause will remain in effect until further notice.’”
The UMS spokesperson says the system instructed the USDA the schools “were in compliance with relevant state and federal laws and that UMS universities are members of the NCAA,” including the system is “unaware” of any Title VI violations.
Nevertheless, UMS says it can present additional readability on the scenario after “further analysis is completed.”
In fiscal yr 2024 alone, the USDA awarded $29.78 million in funding to UMS for analysis, the system mentioned.
The USDA claims it has offered over $100 million to the UMS lately in a letter addressed to the system.
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The NCAA additionally amended its gender eligibility coverage to ban any athlete born biologically male from competing in ladies’s sports activities.
Trump initially vowed to chop funding to Maine particularly if it continued to permit trans athletes to compete in women sports activities throughout a gathering of GOP governors on the White Home on Feb. 20.
The following day, Gov. Janet Mills’ workplace responded with a press release threatening authorized motion in opposition to the Trump administration if it withheld federal funding from the state.
Then Trump and Mills verbally sparred in a broadly publicized argument on the White Home throughout a bipartisan assembly of governors.
Simply hours after that interplay, the US Division of Training introduced it might examine the state for permitting transgender athletes to compete in women sports activities and for potential Title IX violations.
The US Division of Well being and Human Providers has already decided that the state and its division of training have violated Title IX by permitting transgender athletes to compete and has made a referral to the US Division of Justice.
Republican Maine state Rep. Laurel Libby helped ignite the contentious scenario when, in early February, she recognized a organic male who competed in and gained a women state pole vault competitors for Greely Excessive College on social media.
Police safety was assigned to Greely Excessive College in the course of the controversy.
Libby was then censured by the state’s Home of Representatives and Speaker Ryan Fecteau for the submit.
Libby filed a lawsuit Tuesday in opposition to Fecteau in response to the censure, looking for to have her voting and talking rights restored.
The controversy has even incited a protest in opposition to Mills known as the “March Against Mills” exterior the Maine’s State Home Saturday morning.
A number of feminine athletes took the microphone on the march to talk out in opposition to the Democratic governor.
A day later, eight pro-trans activists protested exterior Libby’s residence in opposition to her views.
They held indicators that mentioned “Shame on you Laurel 4 exploiting a child 4 your political gain” and “Protect trans youth,” based on the Maine Wire.
