Smith College under investigation for admitting transgender women, US Department of Education says
The Trump administration announced Monday that it has opened a Title IX investigation into Smith College for admitting transgender women, according to a statement issued by the US Department of Education.
The department’s Office of Civil Rights is looking into the school’s policy of “admitting biological men and granting them access to women-only spaces, including dormitories, bathrooms, locker rooms, and athletic teams,” the statement said.
In May 2015, Smith, one of the nation’s largest all-women schools, changed its admissions policy to include self-identified transgender women.
“An all-women’s college loses all meaning if it is admitting biological males,” Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said in the statement. “Allowing biological males into spaces designed for women raises serious concerns about privacy, fairness, and compliance under federal law. The Trump Administration will continue to uphold the law and fight to restore common sense.”
Title IX is a landmark civil rights law that bans sexual discrimination in education programs that receive federal financial assistance.
A spokesperson for Smith College in western Massachusetts said the school is aware of the investigation.
“The College is fully committed to its institutional mission and values, including compliance with civil rights laws,” the spokesperson said in a statement emailed to the Globe. “The College does not comment on pending government investigations.”
This appears to be the latest in the Trump administration’s campaign of confronting universities over DEI policies.
On his first day back in office, Trump pledged to “defend women’s rights” by recognizing sex as immutable and binary — biologically male or female — and ordered federal agencies to “ensure grant funds do not promote gender ideology.”
The investigation will determine whether the 155-year-old liberal arts college in Northampton has run afoul of Title IX and violated federal law.
Monday’s statement from the Office of Civil Rights said, “Title IX contains a single-sex exception that allows colleges to enroll all-male or all-female student bodies — but the exception applies on the basis of biological sex difference, not subjective gender identity.”
“An all-girls college that enrolls male students professing a female identity would cease to qualify as single sex under Title IX,” the statement said.
The statement continued: “When an institution holds itself out as being an all-women’s college, it is not just promising to deliver female-only dorms and bathrooms, and single-sex athletics; it is also committing to maintain a student body that makes possible a particular form of sorority and camaraderie.”
Tonya Alanez can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @talanez.
