In a fast reversal, the U.S. Division of Agriculture has restored funding to the College of Maine System after pausing it on Monday.
On Wednesday night, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, introduced that USDA funding for UMS applications had resumed after she had consulted with the Trump administration.
“This USDA funding is critically vital not solely to the College of Maine, however to our farmers and loggers, in addition to to the many individuals who work in Maine’s agriculture, aquaculture, and forestry industries,” Collins mentioned in an announcement.
UMS leaders discovered of the funding restoration from Collins. System Chancellor Dannel Malloy and College of Maine President Joan Ferrini-Mundy mentioned in a joint assertion late Wednesday that the shutoff was an “pointless distraction from our important schooling, analysis and extension actions.”
Altogether, UMS has $63 million in energetic USDA grants — most of which fits to the flagship College of Maine campus in Orono, the system mentioned. Of that, about $35 million is left to be paid out. The funding helps finance a wide selection of applications, together with agricultural analysis, the youth agricultural engagement program 4-H, and plant and tick illness testing.
The funding freeze got here weeks after a tense public alternate between President Donald Trump and Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat. Trump threatened Mills on Feb. 21 with pulling all federal funding to the state if it didn’t comply along with his govt order barring transgender girls from Okay-12 and faculty sports activities groups aligning with their gender identification.
The day after the alternate, USDA introduced a compliance assessment of the College of Maine below Title IX, which bars sex-based discrimination at federally funded schooling establishments. In the meantime, the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Companies additionally introduced a civil rights investigation into the state on Feb. 21, discovering simply 4 days later that its schooling division had violated Title IX.
UMS mentioned it heard nothing from USDA between Feb. 26 and March 10, when the system discovered through a forwarded e-mail that USDA had briefly lower off all funding.
UMS maintains that it’s “absolutely compliant” with all state and federal legal guidelines in addition to with up to date NCAA guidelines. The faculty sports activities affiliation modified its guidelines to stick to Trump’s govt order the day after it was signed.
“At no level since USDA introduced its Title IX compliance assessment on Feb. 22 has that Division, or some other get together, alleged any violation by Maine’s public universities of Title IX or some other federal or state regulation,” UMS mentioned in a launch Wednesday.
