Tipsheet

HHS’ Civil Rights Office Announces Maine in Violation of Title IX by Allowing Males in Girls' Sports

Leah Barkoukis
Leah Barkoukis  |  March 18, 2025 8:30 AM

The Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights determined the Maine Department of Education, the Maine Principals’ Association, and Greely High School all violated Title IX by allowing men in women’s sports.

“The Maine Department of Education may not shirk its obligations under Federal law by ceding control of its extracurricular activities, programs, and services to the Maine Principals’ Association,” said Anthony Archeval, Acting Director of the Office for Civil Rights at HHS. “We hope the Maine Department of Education, the Maine Principals’ Association, and Greely High School will work with us to come to an agreement that restores fairness in women’s sports.”

The violation finding is the result of a compliance review of the Maine Department of Education that OCR initiated and announced on February 21, 2025, and then expanded to include the Maine Principals’ Association and Greely High School on March 5, 2025.  The compliance review examined whether the State of Maine engaged in discrimination on the basis of sex in violation of Federal law by allowing males to compete in sports reserved for girls.  OCR’s determination explains the fact-finding and analysis that led to its conclusion that each of the three entities are obligated to comply with Title IX and violated Title IX. […]

President Trump’s Executive Order on Keeping Men out of Women’s Sportslinks to an external website, (E.O. 14201), articulates United States policy, consistent with Title IX, to protect female student athletes, in the women’s category, from having “to compete with or against or having to appear unclothed before males.”  The Executive Order mandates that each Federal department “review grants to education programs and, where appropriate, rescind funding to programs that fail to comply with the policy established in this order,” which protects women “as a matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth.”

OCR’s action is part of a larger initiative to defend women and children and restore biological truth to the Federal government. (HHS)

All three entities have 10 days to rectify the Title IX violations through a signed agreement or face potential consequences from the Department of Justice. 

Republican legislators in Maine called on Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, to comply with Trump’s executive order with millions in federal funding for K-12 schools being threatened as a result of not doing so. 

"If Maine Democrats continue to double down on allowing biological males to participate in girls' sports, our students stand to lose hundreds of millions of dollars of federal funding. Gov. [Janet] Mills and legislative Democrats have a renewed opportunity to do the right thing, to ensure restored funding and a fair and level playing field for Maine girls," state Rep. Laurel Libby, R–Auburn, said this past Thursday. 

Libby became a prominent figure in this Maine debate after posting a Greely High School pole vaulter on social media. The pole vaulter competed as recently as June 2024 as a biological male, and ended up winning a state championship as a woman. 

Democrats in the Maine state legislature censured Libby for the post, which showed the athlete competing as a male, while next to an image of the athlete winning the women’s pole-vaulting competition in the Maine Class B indoor championship in February. (Fox News)