Smith College, one of the largest women’s colleges in the country, has long welcomed transgender men, women and nonbinary people. That policy has also made it the latest target in the Trump administration’s broader push against transgender women’s rights. The U.S. The Department of Education announced on Monday that its Office of Civil Rights has opened an investigation into the college for its admission of transgender women.
The announcement intentionally misgenders transgender women as “biological men” and accuses the school of enrolling “male students professing a female identity.”
The statement goes on to say that the school is violating Title IX, the 1972 law that prohibits sex-based discrimination.
“An all-girls college that enrolls male students professing a female identity would cease to qualify as single sex under Title IX,” the statement says.
But the Smith campus is hardly off limits to men. The college operates as part of the Five-College Consortium, a partnership that includes four other colleges and universities in Western Massachusetts, all of which enroll men. Students in the consortium can attend classes and activities and make use of on-campus resources at any of the schools, such as school libraries.
Smith College has also long admitted transgender nonbinary students and allows transgender men who transition after entry to complete their degrees.
In a statement to The 19th, the college said it does not comment on pending government investigations.
“Smith College has received notice that the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) opened a Title IX investigation into the College,” the college said. “The College is fully committed to its institutional values, including compliance with civil rights laws.”
Smith is often ranked among the most LGBTQ+ welcoming colleges in the nation and is nestled in Northampton, a fixture of queer community life about 100 miles west of Boston.
Smith officially opened its rolls to transgender women in 2015, two years after an admissions controversy. Its position was brought into the spotlight in 2013, when Smith returned the application of high school transgender senior Calliope Wong on the basis of gender identity. Wong posted about her rejection, setting off a firestorm of debate within the progressive school community.