On April 7, 2025, Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey filed suit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture to block the agency’s unlawful attempt to freeze federal funding that Congress had allocated to Maine for its Child Nutrition Program. The Trump administration arbitrarily and capriciously cut Maine’s access to these federal funds without any statutory notice or process, alleging that Maine was violating Title IX by allowing transgender girls to participate in school sports according to their gender identity.

Title IX mandates that government agencies administering federal funds for education must issue rules and regulations in accordance with the Administrative Procedures Act. The agency must provide an opportunity for a hearing, institute a formal finding, and file a report with Congress before being authorized to withhold funding for a violation of Title IX. The Trump administration undertook none of these actions.

Far from prohibiting transgender girls and women to participate in girls’ and women’s sports, numerous courts have ruled that Title IX requires schools to permit them to participate. Unlawfully withholding funding to Maine’s Child Nutrition Program would lead to devastating harm—quite simply, children would go hungry.

Maine requested a temporary restraining order based on the USDA’s violation of the statutory procedures required by Title IX, and the district court agreed, issuing an order on April 11, 2025. Maine dismissed its complaint on May 2, 2025, upon reaching a settlement with the USDA that allowed funding for school children to continue.

Under the banner of keeping children safe, the Trump Administration is illegally withholding grant funds that go to keeping children fed. This is just another example where no law or consequence appears to restrain the administration as it seeks capitulation to its lawlessness. The President and his cabinet secretaries do not make the law and they are not above the law, and this action is necessary to remind the President that Maine will not be bullied into violating the law. Attorney General Aaron Frey