Education Department Opens Title IX Probe of Smith College Over Decade-Old Trans Admissions Policy

The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights has opened a formal Title IX investigation into Smith College over the western Massachusetts women's college's decade-old policy of admitting transgender women, the agency confirmed in a letter sent to Smith's president, Sarah Willie-LeBreton, on Monday and made public Thursday. It is the first time a federal agency has used Title IX — the 1972 law banning sex-based discrimination in federally funded schools — to challenge a single-sex college's gender-inclusive admissions practice.

Smith adopted its current policy in 2015, two years after the college denied admission to a trans woman named Calliope Wong, an episode that touched off a wave of campus activism at the so-called Seven Sisters. Under the 2015 policy, Smith admits any applicant whose application materials consistently identify the applicant as female; the college does not require legal gender markers to be updated. Roughly 60 of Smith's 2,500 undergraduates currently identify as transgender or nonbinary, according to the college's most recent diversity report.

The Education Department's letter argues that Title IX's single-sex exception, which permits federally funded undergraduate colleges to enroll all-male or all-female student bodies, "applies on the basis of biological sex difference, not subjective gender identity." If Smith were to be found in violation, the college could in theory lose access to all federal funding, including Pell Grants and federally subsidized student loans. Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said in a statement that the department was "restoring Title IX to its original meaning" and protecting "the women whom Title IX was written to serve."

The probe was triggered, according to administration officials and a complaint filed by the conservative legal nonprofit Defending Education, by Smith's decision in May 2025 to award an honorary doctorate to Rachel Levine, the former U.S. assistant secretary for health under President Joe Biden, and to invite her to speak at commencement. Levine, who is a transgender woman, used her remarks to defend gender-affirming care for adolescents — drawing a small protest from a handful of alumnae and prompting Defending Education to file a complaint that summer.

Smith president Willie-LeBreton, in a statement to the campus community Friday, called the investigation "deeply disappointing but not unexpected" and said the college "will defend our admissions policy vigorously and lawfully." She noted that 28 of the country's roughly 30 remaining women's colleges, including Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Spelman and Barnard, have adopted similar trans-inclusive policies. Legal scholars said the probe is widely expected to test all the way to the Supreme Court, and could ultimately reshape the operating reality of every single-sex institution in American higher education. "This is the case the administration has been looking for," said Suzanne Goldberg, a Columbia Law School professor who specializes in gender and sexuality law.