MASSACHUSETTS — The U.S. Department of Education has opened an investigation into Smith College over its admission of transgender women, the agency's Office for Civil Rights announced. The inquiry will examine whether the Massachusetts liberal arts school violated Title IX, the 1972 law forbidding discrimination based on sex in education.
The investigation stems from a complaint filed with the Office for Civil Rights in June 2025 by Defending Education, a conservative legal group. According to a news release, Title IX contains an exception that allows colleges to be all-male or all-female on the basis of biological sex difference, not subjective gender identity. "DE and its members oppose, among other things, discrimination on the basis of sex in America's K-12 schools and institutions of higher education," Defending Education said.
Smith College, a private liberal arts school founded in 1871, has admitted transgender women since 2015. The college's website states that any applicants who self-identify as women, including cisgender, transgender, and nonbinary women, are eligible to apply. In 2013, before the college changed its admissions policy, a transgender high school senior was denied acceptance because her gender identity did not match the one on her financial aid forms.
During the Biden administration, new Title IX regulations were issued to prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. A federal judge struck down those regulations in January 2025 on the grounds that the rules had legal shortcomings.
The number of women's colleges in the U.S. declined from more than 200 to 30 as of fall 2023, according to the Women's College Coalition. Smith is among the roughly 30 remaining women's colleges that have adopted policies addressing transgender applicants in recent years.