(The Center Square) — Maine’s Attorney General has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, accusing it of “illegally” freezing federal funding for school lunches and disabled adults.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Maine, alleges that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s decision to freeze the funding was unlawful because the agency didn’t get approval from Congress and violated its regulations requiring a hearing before funds could be terminated. The attorney general’s office asks a judge to set a temporary restraining order while the legal challenge plays out.
Attorney General Aaron Frey also claims in the 18-page complaint that the Trump administration “engaged in an unlawful campaign of coercion” by threatening to cancel Maine’s federal funding over Gov. Janet Mills’ refusal to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender athletes from girls and women’s sports.
“Under the banner of keeping children safe, the Trump administration is illegally withholding grant funds that go to keeping children fed,” Frey, a Democrat, said in a statement. “This is just another example where no law or consequence appears to restrain the administration as it seeks capitulation to its lawlessness.”
Last week, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins announced that the agency is “freezing” Maine’s federal funding for certain administrative and technological functions in K-12 public schools following a Title IX investigation of the Maine Department of Education. The 1972 civil rights law prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funding.
“You cannot openly violate federal law against discrimination in education and expect federal funding to continue unabated,” Rollins wrote to Mills in a scathing letter. “Your defiance of federal law has cost your state, which is bound by Title IX in educational programming.”
While Rollins said the freeze would not impact programs providing food to children, Frey said in the court filing that the Maine Department of Education has been unable to access several federal funding sources “necessary to feed children and vulnerable adults.”
“In short, Secretary Rollins blew up the bridge necessary to get funds from USDA to the schools and other entities that need the funds to feed children and vulnerable adults,” Frey wrote.
Maine has become the epicenter of a nationwide culture war fight over transgender rights after Trump confronted Mills last month about allowing trans athletes to play on teams that align with their gender identity. Mills, a Democrat, has refused to comply with Trump’s executive order to keep biological males from competing in girls’ and women’s sports.
