WASHINGTON – Today, the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) sent a letter to Maine Department of Education (MDOE) Commissioner Pender Makin notifying her that OCR has concluded that MDOE has policies and practices that are in violation of Title IX. The letter details the results of OCR’s February 21 directed investigation into MDOE.
As a result of the noncompliance finding, OCR has issued a proposed Resolution Agreement to the MDOE to resolve the Title IX violations. OCR has offered MDOE an opportunity to voluntarily agree within 10 days or risk imminent enforcement action including referral to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for proceedings.
“The outcome of OCR’s investigation of MDOE confirms that it has violated federal antidiscrimination law by allowing boys to compete in girls’ sports and boys to occupy girls’ intimate facilities. Today’s findings and proposed resolution agreement demonstrate to MDOE and any other entity receiving federal funding that the Trump Administration will not tolerate unlawful discrimination against girls and women,” said Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor. “If Maine does not swiftly and completely come into compliance with Title IX, we will initiate the process to limit MDOE’s access to federal funding.”
The Department of Education’s proposed Resolution Agreement requires the following action items:
(i) MDOE will issue a directive to all public school districts in Maine requiring them to comply with Title IX and reminding them that noncompliance places their federal funding in jeopardy.
(ii) The directive shall specify that Title IX compliance means that schools must forbid allowing males to participate in any athletic program, or access any locker room or bathroom, designated for females and that meaning of words such as “woman” and “man” are to be understood “in the context of the facts that there are only two sexes.”
(iii) MDOE will restore to individual female athletes all individual recognitions such girls or women would have earned but for the recognitions being given to males who participated in girls' competitions.
(iv) For each female athlete whose record is restored, MDOE will send a letter to the female athlete expressing an apology on behalf of the State of Maine for allowing her educational experience and participation in school sports to be marred by sex discrimination.
(v) MDOE will rescind or revise any prior guidance documents or rules which permitted male athletes to participate in girls’ teams and categories and clarify that to the extent that state law conflicts with Title IX, federal law preempts state law unless a school district wants to lose federal funding.
(vi) MDOE will require each school district in Maine to submit to MDOE an annual certification of compliance with Title IX and will promptly notify OCR of any credible report that a school district is still allowing a boy to participate in girls’ sports.
Background:
OCR launched its February 21 directed investigation of MDOE under its authority pursuant to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Title IX and its implementing regulation prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex in any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.
President Trump’s Executive Order Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports articulates United States policy, consistent with Title IX, to protect female student athletes from having “to compete with or against or having to appear unclothed before males.”