Maine fights Trump DOJ demand for identity of every student athlete in the state

A principal group in Maine has refused to turn over a list of athletes demanded by the Trump administration in its attempt to purge transgender athletes from female competition.

The Maine Principals' Association in a legal filing said turning over a list of athletic rosters subpoenaed by the Justice Department would require “personally identifiable information of students, many of whom are unrelated to the underlying controversy,” according to ABC News.

Shortly after the start of his term, President Donald Trump issued an executive order denying any federal funding to any K-12 school, college, or university that allows trans females to compete in girls' and women's sports.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi in April sued Maine’s Department of Education for continuing to allow transgender girls to play. The subpoena from her agency sought the names of all student athletes currently competing in sports in the state of Maine.

Related: Maine Gov. Janet Mills hits back after Trump sues state for transgender sports policies

A judge sealed the subpoena from public view, so its full scope remains unclear. But the association has voiced concerns about exposing the identities of athletes, many of whom are minors.

“The MPA will protect confidential student names and records and school personnel,” James Belleau, an attorney for the Association, told the network.

In prior filings, attorneys for the administration said the records are relevant to “this important case concerning boys playing in sports designated for girls.” The goal is to find how many athletes are competing in a sport dedicated to those assigned female at birth.

Maine has been among the most vocal in its resistance to the administration’s push to eject all trans female athletes from the field.

"This matter has never been about school sports or the protection of women and girls, as has been claimed, it is about states’ rights and defending the rule of law against a federal government bent on imposing its will, instead of upholding the law,” Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, said earlier this year.

But Bondi has asserted this is about protecting both the safety and ambition of female athletes.

“Some of these girls, these teenagers, have worked there since they’re little in all their different sports so they can go to college on a college scholarship, and they’ve lost that because men are beating them in women’s sports,” Bondi told a conservative gathering in March.