Trump Defunds School Lunches In Maine Over Transgender People
To use the term coined by conservative talking heads, Trump is holding school lunch money “hostage.”
When conservatives said that Democrats would strip schoolchildren of their lunch money over trans policy debates, it turns out they weren’t sending a warning about government overreach; it was a threat, if not a promise. And unlike a better economy, this is a promise the GOP has kept.
Now, the State of Maine is suing the Trump Administration and the Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, arguing that the federal government’s freeze of school lunch funding is “a blatantly unlawful action taken by the United States Secretary of Agriculture” targeting “funds allocated to Maine to feed schoolchildren,” the state says in court filings.
“Even if the State of Maine were in violation of Title IX (and, to be clear, it is not), there are statutory and regulatory requirements that the federal government must comply with before it may freeze federal funds owed to a state,” the lawsuit says. “The Secretary followed none of those procedures here. Her action is arbitrary, capricious, not in accordance with law, and did not observe procedures required by law.”
Earlier this month, Rollins sent a letter to Maine Governor Janet Mills, which was obtained by Reuters. "I am freezing Maine's federal funds for certain administrative and technical functions in schools,” Rollins’ letter says. “This is only the beginning, though you are free to end it at any time by protecting women and girls in compliance with federal law.”
On February 25, 2025, United States Attorney General Pam Bondi penned a public letter to Governor Mills claiming that Maine, among other states, was “[re]quiring girls to compete against boys in sports” in violation of Title IX.
“Attorney General Bondi offered no legal support for this claim,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit draws from a landmark 2020 Supreme Court decision, Bostock v. Clayton County. Justice Neil Gorsuch authored the majority opinion. “An employer who fires an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex,” he wrote. “Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what [the Civil Rights Act] forbids…”
For years, Republicans and conservative media painted a sensationalized portrait of President Joe Biden and the Democrats as radicals for allowing trans-affirming policies to take effect. “Biden admin holding school lunch money 'hostage' to force transgender policies, activist parent says,” read one Fox News headline. “Biden rule takes lunch money from schools that reject progressive gender, sexuality agenda,” declared another conservative news outlet.
For better or for worse, the Biden Administration never actually followed through with halting funding for states that may have violated gender identity protections.
Nonetheless, in 2022, 22 states sued the USDA due to an executive order from President Biden, which “directed federal agencies to rewrite federal law to implement the Administration’s policy of ‘prevent[ing] and combat[ing] discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation,’” that lawsuit says. The State Attorneys General said this would “impose new requirements on States, forcing them to adopt the Department’s flawed understanding of what constitutes sex discrimination under Title IX.” The case was dismissed with prejudice for some states, while others voluntarily withdrew their claims.
The Department of Justice has also pulled “nonessential funding” from the Maine Department of Corrections due to reports that a transgender woman is currently being housed in a women’s prison. In March, the Department suspended funding for research and programs at the University of Maine over the state’s trans-friendly policies. But by March 19, the agency said it had unfrozen the money, as per Reuters.
In February, Governor Mills made headlines for refusing to back down from the President during an event for the National Governors Association. He threatened to revoke all federal funds if she didn’t vow to ban “men playing in women’s sports,” which is the GOP’s favorite dog whistle used to describe trans athletes, or athletes they falsely assert are trans.
“See you in court,” Mills quipped.
Subsequently, Trump wrote in a Truth Social post that “the State of Maine has apologized for their Governor,” but that he would still “need a full-throated apology from the Governor herself, and a statement that she will never make such an unlawful challenge to the Federal Government again, before this case can be settled.”
Maine’s Secretary of State, Shenna Bellows, fired back on social media “as the official keeper of all state records and guardian of the seal.”
Bellows wrote: “Can confirm ‘State of Maine” hasn’t apologized.”
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