The Department of Health and Human Service’s Civil Rights Office says Maine’s department of education cannot hide behind its principals’ association in order to continue to authorize males to play in female sports.
In a surprising announcement Monday, the Office of Civil Rights said the Maine Department of Education, the Maine Principals’ Association, and Greely High School are each in violation of Title IX.
As Blaze News previously reported, a male athlete from Greely High School in Cumberland, Maine, took first place in a girls’ pole vault competition at the Maine Indoor Track Meet.
Just a week later, a second travesty occurred when a male athlete took a podium spot from a female athlete in Maine’s state championship for girls’ high school Nordic skiing.
In both scenarios, the Maine Principals’ Association took responsibility for governing high school sports in the state and declared it would defy President Trump’s executive order to prevent women’s sports from being infiltrated by men.
‘The Maine Department of Education may not shirk its obligations under Federal law …’
The HHS Civil Rights Office said in its press release, however, that all three of the state’s aforementioned offices had violated Title IX and must begin to comply.
“The Maine Department of Education may not shirk its obligations under Federal law by ceding control of its extracurricular activities, programs, and services to the Maine Principals’ Association,” said Anthony Archeval, acting director of the Office for Civil Rights. “We hope the Maine Department of Education, the Maine Principals’ Association, and Greely High School will work with us to come to an agreement that restores fairness in women’s sports.”
The Civil Rights Office further cited the president’s executive order and emphasized the protection of female student athletes. The office said there was a necessity to shield women from having to “to compete with or against or having to appear unclothed before males.”
Noting a federal mandate to rescind funding from programs that fail to comply with the executive order, the Office of Civil Rights called protecting women a “matter of safety, fairness, dignity, and truth” and championed the “larger initiative” to defend women and “restore biological truth” to federal government.
President Trump had already slashed Maine’s public university funding over the ordeal, which consists of seven universities and a law school. The University of Maine System lost access to a reported $56.1 million in active USDA grants.
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