Massachusetts’ high school athletics governing body, under federal investigation for Title IX violations for allowing transgender athletes to play against and injure girls, has raked in a staggering $700,000-plus in pandemic relief assistance, records show.

The Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association received loans of $344,267 in 2020 and $362,027 in 2021 to pay its employees, all of which were forgiven by the federal government, according to records.

A spokesman for the MIAA did not respond to a Herald request for comment on what the loans were for and why they weren’t paid back.

It’s unclear how much federal and state assistance the MIAA receives in all but the pandemic relief loans show the association has been leaning on government support to pay for its bloated operations. That assistance could come under the microscope now that the U.S. Department of Education has opened an investigation of the MIAA’s transgender sports rules.

The MIAA’s handbook of rules states a “student shall not be excluded from participation on a gender-specific sports team that is consistent with the student’s bona fide gender identity.”

The investigation stems partly from a high school basketball team from Lowell’s decision to forfeit a game after a transgender athlete injured three girls from the Lowell team. It also comes after a female athlete from Massachusetts was seriously injured in a field hockey game by a shot from a male athlete.

“This administration will not tolerate the mistreatment of female athletes,” Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said in a statement announcing the investigation. “The previous administration trampled the rights of American women and girls – and ignored the indignities to which they were subjected in bathrooms and locker rooms – to promote radical transgender ideology.”

Despite getting pandemic relief loans to pay for staff salaries, the MIAA denied a request for a waiver from a high school student athlete to play an additional year of sports because of mental illness he suffered during the COVID epidemic.

A Superior Court judge last October ruled against the MIAA’s decision to keep the student athlete, Brady Hargraves, from being eligible to play a fifth year because he repeated a grade due to mental health reasons.

Despite the judge’s ruling, Hargraves subsequently did not play a fifth year of sports for his school, Xaverian, because he feared retaliation from the MIAA, his mother says.

So while the MIAA refused to acknowledge COVID’s effect on the kids, they sure did for themselves – pocketing more than $700,000 along the way.

The MIAA, by the way, has few appeals processes for parents and kids who play sports. This is typical of the association, which rules with an iron fist and does not disclose its inner workings to the public.

So there is no oversight or accountability with the MIAA beyond taking them to court. There is no players association to protect the student athletes.

And kids are the ones paying the price, according to parent advocates.

This is why it’s truly time to shake up the MIAA, and if the new powers that be at the federal government can do it with their investigation, more power to them.