The U.S. Department of Education is looking into Smith College, a women’s college in Massachusetts, for letting transgender women in. The Office of Civil Rights in the department will look into whether the college broke Title IX, a law from 1972 that says schools can’t discriminate against students based on their sex.
📌 Key Facts – The Title IX Investigation
| 🔍 What happened? | U.S. Department of Education opened an investigation into Smith College. |
| 🏛️ Why is Smith College being investigated? | Because it admits transgender women. The college says any woman who self-identifies can apply. |
| ⚖️ What law is involved? | Title IX – a 1972 law that bans sex discrimination in education. |
| 📜 What does Title IX say about single-sex colleges? | It allows all-female or all-male colleges, but only based on “biological sex difference,” not “subjective gender identity.” |
| 🗓️ When did Smith start admitting trans women? | 2015. (A trans applicant was denied in 2013 due to a form mismatch.) |
| 👥 Who filed the complaint? | Defending Education, a conservative legal group, in June 2025. |
| 📉 What is the trend for women’s colleges? | They have declined from over 200 to just 30 as of fall 2023. |
The Trump administration’s latest move to limit transgender rights in the US is in line with its history of attacking trans people in its speeches.
The administration has already said that Title IX stops trans women from playing women’s sports. It has sued several states and started investigations into schools that don’t follow the law. Now, the same law is being used to fight the admissions policies at one of the best women’s colleges in the country.
The Title IX Exception: “Biological Sex” vs. “Gender Identity”
Since 2015, Smith College, a private liberal arts school that opened in 1871, has accepted trans women, as have many other top women’s colleges.
People first noticed the school’s admission policies in 2013, when a transgender high school senior was turned down because her gender identity didn’t match what was on her financial aid forms. Smith’s website says that “any applicants who self-identify as women; cis, trans, and nonbinary women” can apply.
Advocates have backed this change, saying that women’s colleges were set up to teach women who were discriminated against because of their gender.
The Department of Education’s press release, on the other hand, points out a key exception in Title IX: the law lets colleges be all-male or all-female, but only “on the basis of biological sex difference, not subjective gender identity.” The investigation started because the conservative legal group Defending Education filed a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights in June 2025.
In a news release, the group said, “DE and its members are against, among other things, discrimination based on sex in America’s K–12 schools and colleges.”
A college spokesperson did not respond right away to an email asking for a comment. The Women’s College Coalition says that the number of women’s colleges in the U.S. has dropped from more than 200 to just 30 as of fall 2023.
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This investigation could put more pressure on the other schools to make sure their admissions policies follow a strict biological reading of Title IX.
A Changing Legal Landscape: How Title IX Changed Under Trump and Biden
New Title IX rules were made during the Biden administration to stop discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. A federal judge threw out those rules in January 2025 because they were not legally sound.
That decision made it possible for the Trump administration to enforce a narrower, sex-based reading of the law. The investigation into Smith College is the most recent case of this kind of enforcement.
Smith hasn’t said anything publicly yet, but this case will likely test whether a women’s college can legally let transgender women in while still claiming protection under Title IX’s single-sex exemption.
Legal experts say that the outcome could set a standard for schools that only admit girls or boys across the country.
