Gov. Janet Mills (D-Maine) is poised to ignore the April 11 deadline set by the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) for Maine to comply with Title IX anti-discrimination laws which the federal government found it to be breaking by refusing to prevent transgender-identifying males from competing in women’s sports or using women’s restrooms and locker rooms.
[RELATED: Federal Department of Education Sends Maine DOE Final Warning on Transgender Athlete Policy…]
“There have been no negotiations that I’m aware of. No negotiations,” said Mills on Thursday, speaking to Maine Total Coverage on the impending deadline.
Mills told the outlet that Maine does not plan to accept the terms laid out by the DOE, which would include a change of policy along with a formal apology to the girls who lost out on sports victories because they were forced to compete against males.
Instead of complying, Mills, apparently unconcerned with the funding loss her state will suffer as a result of her resistance to federal law, told reporters that her administration is already engaged in a legal battle with President Donald Trump and expressed her hope that the case will be decided quickly.
The DOE issued its final warning to the Mills Administration on March 31, in the form of a letter of impasse, informing the state that if it does not accept the proposed resolution by the end of the business day on April 11, the DOE will refer the Maine Department of Education (MDOE) to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for enforcement.
That enforcement could lead to an ultimate rescission of all federal education funding. This would come at the same time Maine struggles with a half billion dollar budget deficit crisis and a damning report by the state auditor that saw over $2 billion in sole source contracts parceled out with scant justifications or oversight.
[RELATED: Maine Audit Reveals Systemic $2.1 Billion Financial Mismanagement and Corruption Risk]
Maine has already lost some federal funding due to its transgender-related policies. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) cut some of its funding for the MDOE in response to the state’s policy of allowing males to participate in women’s sports.
The total amount of federal support for Maine’s schools is estimated at about $280 million annually.
In a separate case, the DOJ cut roughly $1.5 million in non-essential federal funding from the Maine Department of Corrections after discovering that the state houses some transgender-identifying males in women’s prisons, putting the women housed in the facilities at risk.
Whistling past the graveyard, Mills has expressed no apparent concerns about the looming enforcement action likely to be taken against the state and has maintained outward confidence that the state’s legal challenges against the administration will be successful.
At the same time, she has done nothing to bring Maine into compliance with federal law and has resisted taking a strong stance on whether she believes men should be allowed to compete against girls, claiming instead that the Maine Human Rights Act (MHRA) supersedes federal law in much the same vein that segregationist Southern governors refused to comply with federal civil rights law in the 1960s.
The MHRA defines gender identity as a class protected against discrimination, and, Mills claims, compliance with federal law would mean a violation of that state law. She argues that only the state legislature can change that law, though she has done nothing to support legislative efforts from some Republican state lawmakers to do exactly that.
On Thursday, just one day before the deadline, the New York Times published a fawning article on Mills, portraying her as strong and heroic for her defiance of federal law, without raising concerns that Mills’s actions could cost the state millions in vital federal funding. The timing of the piece suggests such praise by national audiences for her resistance to Trump is more important to Mills than her state’s parlous financial condition.
