The New York Post reports the U.S. Department of Agriculture has paused federal dollars allocated for eight public colleges, collectively known as the University of Maine System or UMS.
UMS received $29.78 million from USDA during the 2024 fiscal year and has received more than $100 million from the federal agency in recent years.
The arm-twisting punishment from USDA comes four weeks after President Trump bluntly warned Gov. Mills the Trump administration is siding with female athletes over transgender women – men – in high school and collegiate sports.
At a meeting of state governors at the White House, Trump bragged his administration was defending Title IX federal law, and the female athletes it protects, with an executive order. The executive order, called “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” reversed the Biden administration’s radical plan to redefine Title IX so its nondiscrimination statute includes male athletes, too. The outcome of the Nov. 5 election stopped it.
After describing the EO and the men-in-sports issue, Trump then recognized Gov. Mills, seated to his right.
“Are you not going to comply with that?” Trump (pictured at left) bluntly asked her.
“I’m complying with state and federal laws,” Gov. Mills replied.
“We are the federal law,” Trump retorted. “You better do it because you’re not gonna get any federal funding if you don’t.”
“See you in court,” Gov. Mills snapped back.
The next day, according to the Post, Gov. Mills threatened legal action if the White House withheld federal funds but the U.S. Department of Education had already announced a federal investigation into alleged Title IX violations by Maine’s state government.
Not long after that confrontation, Maine’s stance on Title IX and women’s sports dominated the news cycle again. In a narrow vote, the Democrat-led legislature censured a GOP lawmaker, Laurel Libby. She was stripped of the right to vote after she refused to remove a Facebook post that criticized a transgender female athlete, a teen boy. The high school junior won a state title in pole vaulting after competing against high school girls.
“Meet John, who now goes by Katie,” Libby wrote, referring to John Rydzewski’s legal name before he began competing as a girl this season.
Rydzeski’s pole vault, 10 feet and 6 inches, was a whopping six inches higher than his female competitors to win him the state title, The College Fix reported.
Libby’s censure by the Maine House of Representatives came less than a week after the verbal spat between President Trump and Gov. Mills.
Steve McConkey, who leads sports ministry 4 Winds USA, tells AFN the financial threat will get Maine’s attention.
“I think it’s a great idea. I think you have to hit them in the pocketbook,” McConkey, a critic of transgender athletes, says. “These people are pushing this woke agenda.”
Bucking a swing to Trump in crucial swing states, Maine voters chose Kamala Harris over Trump 52%-45% in the November presidential election.
Gov. Mills, a former Maine attorney general, won a second term in 2022 when she defeated Republican candidate Paul LePage 55%-42%.
