Education

Education Department launches Title XI investigation into all-women’s college

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by Max Rego - 05/04/26 10:26 PM ET

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by Max Rego - 05/04/26 10:26 PM ET

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The Education Department on Monday opened a Title IX investigation into Smith College, a private all-women’s school, for admitting transgender women.

In a release, the Education Department wrote that its Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is opening an investigation into the Massachusetts college for admitting transgender women and “granting them access to women-only spaces, including dormitories, bathrooms, locker rooms, and athletic teams.”

As part of its probe, the OCR will determine whether Smith violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits discrimination based on sex in education programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance.

“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,” the release noted. “An all-girls college that enrolls male students professing a female identity would cease to qualify as single sex under Title IX.”

Smith, which opened in 1875 and is in Northampton, Mass., touts itself as “among the largest women’s colleges” in the U.S. It has more than 2,500 undergraduates and admits men and women to its graduate programs.

In 2015, Smith’s board of trustees voted to alter the college’s admission policy to include transgender women. At the time, the college wrote in a release that the decision “affirms Smith’s unwavering mission and identity as a women’s college, our commitment to representing the diversity of women’s lived experiences, and the college’s exceptional role in the advancement of women worldwide.”

Under its admissions policy, the college “considers for admission any applicants who self-identify as women” and notes that “cis, trans, and nonbinary women are eligible” to apply.

The Hill has reached out to Smith for comment on the investigation.

“An all-women’s college loses all meaning if it is admitting biological males,” Kimberly Richey, an assistant secretary for civil rights at the Education Department, said in the Monday release. “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 OCR opened the investigation in response to a complaint filed by Defending Education, a conservative activist group, last June. In that complaint, Defending Education alleged that Smith was in violation of Title IX for admitting transgender women.

On his first day back in office, President Trump signed an executive order defining sex as an individual’s “immutable biological classification as either male or female” and removing “gender identity” from recognition under federal law.

In December, the Department of Health and Human Services proposed preventing hospitals and doctors that perform gender-affirming procedures on minors from receiving Medicare and Medicaid funding.

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