Smith College Education probe centers on transgender women admissions
The US Department of Education opened an education Title IX investigation into Smith College on Monday over the school’s admissions policy for self-identified transgender women. The inquiry puts the 155-year-old Northampton liberal arts college under federal review for its access rules in women-only housing, bathrooms, locker rooms and athletic teams.
Kimberly Richey Statement
Kimberly Richey, the assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement Monday that “An all-women’s college loses all meaning if it is admitting biological males.” She added that “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.”
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 on the basis of biological sex difference, not subjective gender identity. It said an all-girls college that enrolls male students professing a female identity would cease to qualify as single sex under Title IX.
Smith College May 2015
Smith College changed its admissions policy in May 2015 to include self-identified transgender women. The college is one of the nation’s largest all-women schools, and the federal review now focuses on whether that policy fits the law’s single-sex exception as described by the Education Department.
A spokesperson for Smith College said the school is aware of the investigation and is “fully committed to its institutional mission and values, including compliance with civil rights laws.” The spokesperson also said, “The College does not comment on pending government investigations.”
The department’s statement framed the issue around women-only dorms, bathrooms, locker rooms and athletics, which are the specific spaces now under scrutiny. Smith’s policy change and the federal inquiry are now linked in one case file: whether a college that holds itself out as women’s-only can admit students who identify as transgender women and still remain within Title IX’s single-sex exception.
For Smith, the practical step is straightforward: the college is already in a pending federal review, and its public position is limited to compliance and a refusal to discuss the case further. For students and applicants, the immediate question is whether the school’s admissions rules and single-sex spaces stay in place while the Office of Civil Rights proceeds.
