A federal judge temporarily blocked the U.S. Department of Agriculture from cutting, pausing or otherwise interfering with federal funding to Maine.

U.S. District Court Judge John Woodcock Jr. granted the state’s request for an emergency temporary restraining order in a decision Friday.

The USDA “must immediately unfreeze and release to the state of Maine any federal funding that they have frozen or failed or refused to pay because of the state of Maine’s alleged failure to comply with the requirements of Title IX,” Woodcock wrote.

Maine sued the federal agency and its leader, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, on Monday. In that suit, the state for the first time publicly argued against the Trump administration’s interpretation of Title IX, a landmark civil rights case barring discrimination in education on the basis of sex.

Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey said the restraining order “confirms that the Trump administration did not follow the rule of law” in cutting certain program funds.

“This order preserves Maine’s access to certain congressionally appropriated funds by prohibiting an unlawful freeze by the administration,” Frey said in a written statement. “No one in our constitutional republic is above the law and we will continue to fight to hold this administration to account.”

The USDA announced funding cuts on April 2 but did not specify the exact amount or what programs they impacted. Court records later revealed the amount to be less than $3 million, intended to cover technology, training and administrative costs related to operating school lunch programs.

Frey argued that cutting the administrative funding would effectively have the same impact as cutting the money that pays for food itself. Other state officials who work in the program said it would cause children and vulnerable adults not to be fed.

The order remains in effect until lifted by the court. Maine will be required to bring supporting evidence for a preliminary injunction before the court at a preliminary hearing, which has not yet been scheduled, Woodcock said.

Woodcock, a senior judge for the U.S. District of Maine and a Bangor native, was appointed to the court in 2003 by then-President George W. Bush.

The USDA did not immediately return a request for comment on the restraining order Friday night.

Though Maine has signed onto several other suits against the Trump administration, this was the first to result directly from its targeting of Maine over the state’s allowance of transgender athletes to compete in girls and women’s sports.

Rollins, like many in the administration, charged that doing so violates Title IX and flies in the face of the executive order President Donald Trump issued on his first day in office barring transgender women from competing based on their gender identity. But Maine state officials say that interpretation of Title IX is wrong, and they note that Maine’s Human Rights Act offers explicit protection based on an individual’s gender identity.

The Trump administration has targeted Maine with investigations and threats to pull funding since a confrontation between Trump and Gov. Janet Mills in the White House went viral in February.