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The University of Maine System said Friday that it was found to be in compliance with federal and state laws, as well as NCAA rules that were changed following President Donald Trump’s executive order to prohibit transgender women and girls from competing in female sports.
The confirmation came after the Trump administration had previously said an investigation had found the university system violated Title IX, which bans sex-based discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funding, and that the Department of Agriculture would be suspending federal funds to UMS, which comprises seven universities across the state.
“We are relieved to put the Department’s Title IX compliance review behind us so the land-grant University of Maine and our statewide partners can continue to leverage USDA and other essential federal funds to strengthen and grow our natural resource economy and dependent rural communities through world-class education, research and extension,” Dannel Malloy, the system’s chancellor, said in a statement to NBC News.
In the 2024 fiscal year, UMS received almost $30 million in USDA funding, according to the school system.
The statement from UMS followed an announcement from the USDA on Wednesday that said the university system “clearly communicated its compliance with Title IX’s requirement to protect equal opportunities for women and girls to compete in safe and fair sports, as articulated in President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order.”
Trump’s transgender sports order, which he signed last month, prohibits trans women and girls from participating in female sports and states that the federal government will rescind funds from educational programs that don’t comply. The order, which refers to trans women as men, says that having trans women in female sports “is demeaning, unfair, and dangerous to women and girls, and denies women and girls the equal opportunity to participate and excel in competitive sports.”
The USDA temporarily paused UMS’ funding, the system said in a news release on March 11. In an email, the USDA’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer said it was evaluating “if it should take any follow-on actions related to prospective Title VI or Title IX violations,” according to the release.
“USDA is committed to upholding the President’s executive order, meaning any institution that chooses to disregard it can count on losing future funding,” U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said last month, according to a news release.
Samantha Warren, UMS’ chief external and governmental affairs officer, said Maine’s public universities have always been compliant with state and federal laws and with NCAA rules, and the system “remained compliant when the NCAA updated its rules in February.”
In 2022, the NCAA adopted a sport-by-sport approach for transgender athletes, deferring to policies set by each sport’s national governing body, subject to review and recommendation by an NCAA committee. Last month, following Trump’s executive order, the college sports association updated its policy to limit “competition in women’s sports to student-athletes assigned female at birth only.”
Joe Kottke is an assignment editor at NBC News covering domestic news, including natural disasters, LGBTQ issues and politics.
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