Trump administration investigates Smith College transgender policy
At the time, the information “piqued my interest as to what the policies were relative to single-sex admissions and gender identity at the college,” as a result of Smith receives federal funding, mentioned Sarah Parshall Perry, vp of the conservative group, Defending Education.
In June 2025, Perry filed a federal civil rights complaint with the US Department of Education that has since morphed right into a authorities investigation probing whether or not Smith’s admissions policy violates Title IX, the legislation prohibiting intercourse discrimination in teaching programs that obtain federal help.
The investigation may have implications for different girls’s schools, together with Mount Holyoke and Wellesley, which each admit transgender girls.
“Title IX contains a single-sex exception that allows colleges to roll all-male or all-female student bodies — but the exception applies on the basis of biological sex difference, not subjective gender identity,” the US Education Department’s Civil Rights workplace mentioned in an announcement Monday.
“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.
A spokesperson for Smith mentioned the college is conscious of the investigation and “fully committed to [Smith’s] institutional mission and values, including compliance with civil rights laws,” however “does not comment on pending government investigations.”
Levine, the primary brazenly transgender federal official to be confirmed by the Senate, is a favourite goal of Republicans, drawing significantly intense criticism for her opposition to government-imposed restrictions on transgender look after minors, which she has referred to as a health equity issue. The Trump marketing campaign featured her picture in advertisements attacking Kamala Harris on trans rights points within the 2024 presidential race.
The Defending Education grievance argues Smith discriminates towards “biological women” by admitting college students whose assigned intercourse at delivery was male however recognized as feminine, whereas barring college students whose assigned intercourse at delivery was feminine however recognized as male.
The US Department of Education didn’t reply to a Globe request for extra data on Tuesday.
Perry, who served as a high-level official within the Department of Education throughout the first Trump time period, mentioned the investigation ought to encourage Smith to comply with a decision with the administration.
“Smith College, obviously, is under no obligation to receive federal funding, but once they do, they have to follow federal civil rights law,” she mentioned. “Smith can’t have his cake and eat it, too, by saying, ‘We’ll give lip service to Title IX, but we will violate the spirit, letter, history, and plain text of Title IX at the same [time].’ ”
If Smith needs to maintain its present insurance policies, she added, it could possibly depend on personal and state funding as a substitute.
Shiwali Patel, senior director of training justice on the National Women’s Law Center, mentioned the probe is proof the Trump administration is extra taken with “focusing on fake problems than addressing the current issues that women and girls are facing in education.” Patel additionally argued that admissions to non-public undergraduate schools are exempt from Title IX’s necessities.
“The Department of Education’s investigation into Smith College is not civil rights enforcement. It’s the weaponization of Title IX and its protections,” she mentioned.
Within hours of the Trump administration’s announcement of the investigation Monday, colourful chalk messages began appearing throughout Smith’s campus: “You belong here,” “We love our trans sisters,” “Trans people belong at Smith.”
The faculty additionally alerted the campus group concerning the investigation by way of an e mail that shared psychological well being and different assets.
“We recognize that this development is very difficult for our community,” wrote Alexander Keller, dean of the school and vp of campus life.
Margot Audero, a transgender lady in her senior 12 months at Smith, understands her faculty’s should be cautious, however she additionally needs to listen to its leaders converse up.
“This does fundamentally change the calculus,” she mentioned. “Smith no longer has the option of staying out of the spotlight. . . . I do think they have the opportunity to loudly state their values.”
The Smith investigation is a part of the White House’s broader marketing campaign towards transgender rights. On his first day again in workplace, Trump pledged to “defend women’s rights” by recognizing intercourse as immutable and binary — biologically male or feminine — and ordered federal companies to “ensure grant funds do not promote gender ideology.”
The administration has since pursued a raft of antitrans insurance policies, from blocking federal funding to hospitals that present gender-affirming care to minors to mandating the removing of transgender personnel from the army. It even modified Levine’s identify on her official portrait to her earlier identify, NPR reported.
The authorized and political battle has resurfaced divisions over the distinction between intercourse and gender, together with what it means to be a girls’s faculty at present. Both Smith and Wellesley have developed considerably since first opening their doorways round 150 years in the past, whereas Mount Holyoke College, based in 1837, is probably the most gender-inclusive of the trio.
Mount Holyoke dubs itself “the leading gender-diverse women’s college” and welcome everybody however cisgender males (who determine as male, in accordance with their assigned intercourse at delivery). Wellesley admits college students who live and consistently identify as girls.
Smith at present “considers for admission any applicants who self-identify as women,” together with those that are cis, trans, and nonbinary, according to its website. The faculty modified its admissions policy to incorporate self-identified transgender girls in May 2015amid pushback from some alumnae.
Genny Beemyn, director of the Stonewall Center on the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a useful resource for the LGBTQ+ group on campus and past, wasn’t shocked by the DOE investigation of Smith.
What is shocking is that “it took this long, quite honestly, given the [Trump] administration’s hatred of trans people,” Beemyn mentioned.
As a nonbinary educator who usually speaks publicly about transgender points at faculties throughout the nation, Beemyn is receiving far fewer invites as schools hold a low profile to keep away from the glare of the Trump administration.
Campuses are “scared to do trans events, to have trans speakers, to demonstrate that they support trans rights . . . because they’re so afraid of being targeted, being singled out, being attacked, maybe having federal funds taken away,” Beemyn mentioned, including that establishments ought to be cautious, however not invisible within the battle.
Beemyn famous that they’ve additionally heard from transgender college students at UMass Amherst and different faculties “who are feeling like they don’t have a lot of support because their administrations are not coming forward and saying, ‘We support you.’ And that makes a difference.”
Last fall after Perry filed her grievance, Smith president Sarah Willie-LeBreton advised the Globe she hadn’t heard from the DOE and wasn’t ready to “offer legitimacy” to it by commenting. “Our admissions policies are firmly within the law,” she said at the time“and we’re very proud of those policies.”
Now {that a} federal investigation of Smith has been introduced, “The proof will be what Smith decides to do in response: if they capitulate, or if they stand up and say, ‘This is something we value, and we are not going to give into the administration,’” Beemyn mentioned.
Brooke Hauser may be reached at brooke.hauser@globe.com. Follow her @brookehauser. Tonya Alanez may be reached at tonya.alanez@globe.com. Follow her @talanez.
