Minnesota Says DOJ Threatened Funds Freeze Over Trans Policy (1)

The US Department of Justice is threatening to withhold federal funding from Minnesota if the state doesn’t reverse its policy allowing transgender women and girls to participate in female sports, the state said in a complaint filed Tuesday.

Minnesota’s Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of someone’s gender identity or expression, and President Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender women in female sports doesn’t override the state’s law, Minnesota says in its complaint filed in the US District Court for the District of Minnesota.

White House principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields called Minnesota’s suit “creepy and anti-woman” in a statement to Bloomberg Law.

Minnesota’s complaint follows a similar lawsuit from Maine against the US Department of Agriculture, after the agency froze its funding to the state on April 2 over Maine’s alleged ongoing violations of Title IX tied to the state’s permitting transgender women and girls to participate in female sports. A federal judge in Maine temporarily barred USDA until May 9 from withholding its grants to the state, which Maine said it uses to feed schoolchildren.

Like Minnesota law, Maine’s Human Rights Act provides protections for students from discrimination based on their gender identity.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison issued a formal opinion in February clarifying that the state’s law “still requires schools to allow children to participate in sports consistent with their gender identity,” the complaint said. Trump’s executive order banning transgender girls in female sports—and other orders targeting transgender people—"do not and cannot reverse the federal and state statutes that prohibit discrimination against vulnerable populations,” the state asserts.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a Feb. 25 letter to Ellison that Minnesota’s law runs contrary to Title IX, and that states must defer to federal law “because the Constitution requires states to follow the supreme law of the land.”

But Minnesota argues its law doesn’t conflict with Title IX because the federal statute doesn’t “require discrimination against students on the basis of their gender identity.”

The DOJ on April 8 notified Minnesota that it was initiating an investigation into Title IX compliance by several Minnesota schools and educational entities, including the University of Minnesota and St. Paul Public Schools. The department requested Ellison clarify his prior opinion so that it aligns with the federal government’s view of Title IX, and threatened to withhold federal funding to the state’s schools if Ellison didn’t comply. The DOJ also said it would seek “judicial resolution to ensure Minnesota school are permitted to fulfill their obligations under Title IX and maintain federal funding,” the complaint said.

The specific grants at issue support law enforcement and various programs to prevent violence among youth and in schools, Minnesota said.

The state asserts violations of the Tenth Amendment and Administrative Procedure Act, and alleges the DOJ’s actions violate separation of powers. Minnesota is seeking an injunction preventing the DOJ from enforcing Trump’s transgender sports and gender ideology executive orders against the state.

Judge Susan Richard Nelson is assigned the case.

The DOJ didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The case is State of Minn. v. Trump, D. Minn., No. 0:25-cv-01608, complaint filed 4/22/25.