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 receivingfederal 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.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY