All-Female College Faces Discrimination Complaint For Admitting Men Who Identify As Women
Cis, trans, and nonbinary women are eligible to apply to Smith.
Smith College has been hit with a federal civil rights complaint over its policies admitting biological men who identify as women and allowing them into women’s spaces.
Defending Ed, an education advocacy group, filed the complaint with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, alleging the all-female school’s trans-inclusive policies discriminate based on sex, in violation of Title IX.
Smith is a private liberal arts college for women located in Northampton, Massachusetts.
Under Smith’s admission policy, “people who identify as women—cis, trans and nonbinary women—are eligible to apply.”
Once admitted, trans-identified men have full access to the school’s “all-gender” bathrooms and locker rooms, according to the complaint.
Students who object to sharing the bathroom or undressing with members of the opposite sex risk investigation and punishment for “bigotry” by the school’s “Bias Response Team.”
From the complaint:
The college’s Equal Education Opportunity Policy indicates that it will follow Title IX and prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex in its federally funded programs. The very same policy, however, indicates that Smith interprets Title IX to prohibit ‘gender identity’ discrimination, despite federal case law and this Department’s guidance to the contrary.
…
Title IX prohibits discrimination based on sex in any education program or activity receiving
federal financial assistance. At the same time, Title IX also protects single-sex spaces: For example, female students are entitled to sex-segregated intimate spaces, single-sex membership in sororities, single-sex athletic teams, and single-sex admissions where an institution has held itself out to be single-sex and provides substantially equivalent educational opportunities.Discrimination based on gender identity is not the same as discrimination based on sex under Title IX, as this Department well knows, and the Supreme Court has never held it is.
“To the extent Smith’s accommodations for so-called gender identity encroach upon sex-specific programs and spaces, it is in violation of Title IX,” the complaint charges.
In addition, by opening slots to transgender women that would have otherwise gone to biological women, Smith’s admission policy violates Title IX. Preferring gender identity over biological sex subverts the purpose of Title IX—“to protect biological women in education.”
If the OCR decides to investigate Smith, the school could face federal funding cuts. Earlier this year, the Department of Education found the University of Pennsylvania violated Title IX by allowing males to compete in women’s sports and to occupy women-only intimate facilities. UPenn risks losing federal funding if it fails to comply with the government’s demands.
Smith is the largest of the five remaining Seven Sister schools, all of which have trans-inclusive policies. Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, and Wellesley revised their admissions policies between 2014 and 2015 to include applicants who identify as women, regardless of their sex assigned at birth.
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Comments
gotta love the confused left
“If the OCR decides to investigate Smith, the school could face federal funding cuts.”
I’m wondering why federal taxpayer dollars are going to a “private liberal arts college for women,” if they’re allowed to ignore Title IX.
Actually, I’m wondering why federal taxpayer dollars are going to ANY private liberal arts colleges for women. Or men, for that matter.
b/c the fiscal conservatives trusted the gop who of course are traitors and now its a matter of who has the courage to do what needs to be done to reverse this
My alma mater, Sweet Briar College, is also a women’s college (Virginia). It remains fiercely pro-women and explicitly disallows anyone other than a woman from enrolling. The only exception is that sons of faculty members may attend classes on campus, but they can’t earn a degree or be a member of the college.
Smith, huh.
Is there a “we told you so” enhancement to FAFO?
Enrollment dropping maybe?
“regardless of their sex assigned at birth.”
Can we lose the damned libspeak?
Smith is famously known among young college bound women I am told for being a lesbian college. I wonder how male transvestites play out there? They are not appreciated by the lesbians I know. As the last election showed, the opinions of faculty/administrators and the student body at large can differ dramatically.
I wonder whether Smith would accept transmen ie females identifying as males for the purpose of…well whatever their purpose would be.
From the Complaint:
“Ironically, in what appears to be yet another exercise in sex discrimination, Smith admits natal men who identify as women but does not admit natal women who identify as men.”
Thank you. I need wonder no longer.
Congress should enact a private right of action by females against organizations which permit XY males admission to XX female teams, schools and activities.
Smith can interpret Title IX any way they want. That doesn’t mean they are correct and there will be no consequences for their actions.
Any man identifying as a woman should go F himself.
I don’t understand the legal argument though. Where is the discrimination?
They have “all-gender” bathrooms that anyone can use. If Smith did not call itself a “women’s college” and just admitted anyone, rather than anyone self-identifying as a woman, there would be no case here.
And I don’t see how the policy of admitting only people self-identifying as a woman changes that. (If anything it favors “women” over anyone else, however one defines the term “women”, and I’m not a biologist so I don’t know how to define it.) Seriously, what is the discrimination? What is the legal theory?
Um in 2nd paragraph, I shouldn’t have said they admit anyone, I’m sure they don’t even though “women’s colleges” have become a lot less popular among females and so they have had to lower standards, and the trend to consider biological men who identify as women was partly to broaden the base of applicants and save their selectivity and SAT scores.
The discrimination is that by admitting MEN to a females only school they are having to deliberately discriminate against other females who would nornally have been admitted if it wasn’t for men taking their place.
It has always been amusing to me that these sorts of discriminatory policies based on sex were somehow deemed to be ‘ok’ when discrimination in admissions policies based on other immutable characteristics was not. Either it is all bad (my view) or it is all ok. Let’s be consistent and end the hypocrisy.