Maine’s attorney general filed a lawsuit on Monday asking a federal judge to lift President Donald Trump’s pause on education funding to the state.
The pause was announced last week by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins as part of Trump’s Title IX interpretation disallowing transgender student-athletes to play sports aligned with their gender identity. The state claims the pause is withholding funds used to feed school children and disabled adults, contrary to promises from the USDA and Rollins.
Attorney General Aaron M. Frey said the state’s Child Nutrition Program of the Maine Department of Education was unable to access federal funds used to feed children and adults with disabilities and asked the court to grant a temporary restraining order releasing the federal funds.
“Without federal funds, state employees who administer school food programs will be laid off, food providers will not be able to purchase food or pay staff to prepare and serve food, and schools will not be reimbursed for meals they provide,” Frey said in a statement released yesterday. “In short, children, as well as some vulnerable adults, will go hungry.”
Frey was unsparing in the lawsuit, saying Rollins sounded “more like a hostage taker seeking a ransom payment than a cabinet-level federal official.”