The Department of Education is investigating Smith College to determine whether or not the institution violated Title IX by admitting transgender students into the all-women’s college.
“An all-women’s college loses all meaning if it is admitting biological males,” Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said in a statement. “Allowing biological males into spaces designed for women raises serious concerns about privacy, fairness, and compliance under federal law.”
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The investigation comes after Defending Education filed an Office for Civil Rights complaint against the college in 2025 for admitting transgender women. The education group alleged in its complaint that Smith College discriminates on the basis of sex in violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 by having an admissions policy that accepts “cis, trans and nonbinary women” into the college.
“Smith is a women’s college and considers for admission any applicants who self-identify as women; cis, trans, and nonbinary women are eligible to apply to Smith,” the college’s website reads.
Title IX bars any institution from receiving federal funding if it discriminates based on sex. In its press release on the investigation, the Education Department said the rule has an exception for all-male or all-female colleges, but that does not apply to “subjective gender identity.” An all-women’s institution that “enrolls male students professing a female identity” would no longer be eligible for that Title IX exception, the Education Department said.
Smith is aware of the investigation, but didn’t comment on the status of it in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
“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 statement read. “The College is fully committed to its institutional values, including compliance with civil rights laws. The College does not comment on pending government investigations.”
The Northampton, Massachusetts, all-women’s college changed its admissions policy to accept transgender women in May 2015 after campus protests over the policy. The institution was one of the first all-women’s colleges to change its policy, but many others followed suit after Smith.
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“As we reflect on how Smith lives its values – a commitment to access and diversity, to respecting the dignity of every individual, and to educating women for leadership across all realms of society – we will be called, in changing times, to consider anew how we will choose to be a women’s college,” Smith College’s then-president, Kathleen McCartney, and then-board chair, Elizabeth Mugar Eveillard, said in a 2015 statement.
The Washington Examiner reached out to Smith College for comment.
