Maine reaches settlement with USDA over frozen school funding

The state of Maine and the U.S. Department of Agriculture reached a settlement regarding the

federal government's freezing of funds over alleged Title IX violations. Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins sent a letter to Maine's Governor

Janet Mills telling her federal funds for the state of Maine were frozen and under review

because of Maine's public school transgender policies. The freeze impacted salaries of state

employees who work for school food programs. In order to continue to receive taxpayer dollars

from USDA, the state of Maine must demonstrate compliance with Title IX, which protects female

student-athletes from having to compete with or against or having to appear unclothed before males

Secretary Rollins wrote in the letter. Days later, Maine asked the court to grant a temporary

restraining order, arguing, Secretary Rollins' action is blatantly unlawful. She cannot simply

decreed the freezing of federal funds to which the state of Maine is entitled Rather she must follow the requisite procedures which among other things would give the state of Maine the opportunity to refute the secretary erroneous claim

that Title IX prohibits schools from allowing transgender girls and women from participating on girls' and women's teams

On April 11th, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to unfreeze the funds

Under the settlement signed Friday, the Trump administration agreed to refrain from freezing or terminating USDA federal funds to the

state of Maine, and in return, the state dropped its lawsuit against the federal government

The state of Maine went to court and fought this unlawful attempt to freeze critical funding for

our school lunch program, and we won. I applaud the work of Attorney General Frye and his staff

in representing the state in this action against USDA and preserving healthy school meals for 172,000

Maine school children, Governor Mills said in a statement. For Shadaro News, I'm Lauren Keenan

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