{"id":12,"date":"2026-05-21T12:42:42","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T12:42:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prorelocationteam.com\/?p=12"},"modified":"2026-05-21T12:42:42","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T12:42:42","slug":"federal-investigation-into-smith-college-probes-whether-transgender-students-can-attend-womens-schools-challenging-the-evolving-mission-of-womens-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prorelocationteam.com\/?p=12","title":{"rendered":"Federal investigation into Smith College probes whether transgender students can attend women\u2019s schools \u2013 challenging the evolving mission of women\u2019s\u00a0education"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Within the past decade, most women\u2019s colleges in the United States \u2013 including Smith College, a liberal arts college in Northampton, Massachusetts \u2013 have expanded their admissions policies, allowing transgender students to also attend. Many of these policies allow transgender women to apply, while policies for transgender men and nonbinary students vary more widely.<\/p>\n

Read more Teens aren\u2019t as disengaged as you may think: What adults get wrong about adolescents\u2019 civic\u00a0contributions<\/a><\/p>\n

The Trump administration announced on May 4, 2026, that it is investigating Smith College for violating Title IX, a law that prohibits discrimination based on someone\u2019s sex.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn all-women\u2019s college loses all meaning if it is admitting biological males,\u201d Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said in a statement issued by the Education Department. <\/p>\n

As a scholar of higher education who studies the experiences of LGBTQ+ students, I think it is important to recognize that women\u2019s colleges offer a unique experience to students, including transgender and queer students. They create environments where students who are marginalized by their genders see themselves as leaders. <\/p>\n

Women\u2019s colleges have also long been welcoming places for lesbian and queer relationships, offering community and support as attitudes about gender and sexuality have changed.<\/p>\n

A prior focus on trans athletes<\/h2>\n

Up until now, the Trump administration\u2019s policy agenda on transgender rights and education has primarily focused on whether universities should let transgender students participate in college sports. <\/p>\n

The Trump administration froze US$175 million in federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania in 2025 because it objected to how the school allowed transgender students to participate on women\u2019s sports teams. One trans woman athlete named Lia Thomas, in particular, gained recognition for her strong performance on the women\u2019s swim team at Penn. <\/p>\n

The administration released the frozen funding after Penn agreed in July 2025 to block trans athletes like Thomas from participating in women\u2019s sports. <\/p>\n

Some of the sports-related lawsuits the administration filed in 2025 \u2013 like those targeting Penn and the University of Maine for allowing trans women to participate in women\u2019s sports \u2013 have been settled out of court.<\/p>\n

Other Title IX investigations into San Jos\u00e9 State University and the University of Nevada-Reno, for example, are still ongoing. <\/p>\n

Understanding role of women\u2019s colleges<\/h2>\n

Women\u2019s colleges were created in the mid-to-late 1800s, when women were largely not allowed to enroll in most colleges. Women\u2019s colleges became places where these students would be taken seriously as women and leaders. <\/p>\n

As more colleges went coeducational, women\u2019s colleges had to explain their purpose and evolving missions over time.<\/p>\n

After World War II, for example, people said that American women who were working jobs outside the home should stop. Women\u2019s colleges again explained their mission to the public, stating they could prepare women for the workforce and home. So, while women\u2019s colleges were created to respond to the gendered exclusion of women, their missions have shifted as societal understandings of gender have evolved, too.<\/p>\n

Transgender students didn\u2019t suddenly appear at women\u2019s colleges or other higher education institutions. But in the early 2000s, more students began to openly identify as transgender, and colleges increasingly had to decide how to adjust their policies. <\/p>\n

Some older alumni of women\u2019s colleges have expressed concern about admitting trans students, including whether allowing them affects a women\u2019s college\u2019s reputation, traditions or identity. These debates can matter a lot because most women\u2019s colleges in the U.S. are private liberal arts colleges that depend on tuition payments and donations.<\/p>\n

But some alumni have supported more expansive admissions policies consistent with the broader mission of women\u2019s education.<\/p>\n

Read more Is baby talk bad? Why \u2018parentese\u2019 actually helps babies learn\u00a0language<\/a><\/p>\n

While women\u2019s schools have presented their own challenges for some queer and transgender students, they have long remained significant to the LGBTQ+ community.<\/p>\n

What should women\u2019s colleges be?<\/h2>\n

The number of women\u2019s colleges has declined sharply over the past few decades. <\/p>\n

In 1960 there were about 230 such colleges. In 2023 there were 30 women\u2019s colleges in the United States. As more colleges became coeducational, women had more options, and many women\u2019s colleges either closed, merged or began admitting men.<\/p>\n

This decline in women\u2019s colleges helps explain why debates over admitting trans students to women\u2019s colleges are so charged. Each decision becomes part of a broader question about what women\u2019s colleges are and should be. <\/p>\n

The conversation around transgender and nonbinary students attending women\u2019s colleges became more public in the 2010s. In 2013 Smith College denied admission to a trans woman because the student indicated that she was male on her federal financial aid forms. <\/p>\n

This resulted in a big debate between Smith alumni and students about what the school\u2019s admission policy should be. Leading up to this point, several women\u2019s colleges \u2013 including Barnard, Smith, Mills and Wellesley \u2013 treated trans student applicants on a case-by-case basis, or in an informal way. <\/p>\n

In 2014, Mount Holyoke, a women\u2019s college in western Massachusetts, created one of the most expansive early policies on this issue. It allowed applications from transgender women and from some applicants who identified as transgender more broadly, while continuing to exclude cisgender men.<\/p>\n

Smith also announced a new policy in 2015 that allowed anyone who identified as female to apply and be admitted.<\/p>\n

Today, most but not all women\u2019s colleges have their own policies regarding the admission of trans students. These policies vary: Some admit transgender women and some nonbinary applicants, while others are more restrictive. Many do not admit applicants who identify as men, including transgender men. <\/p>\n

Mixed experiences for trans students<\/h2>\n

Some research finds that students overall at women\u2019s colleges report higher levels of support \u2013 including from faculty \u2013 than students at coeducational colleges. Some transgender students arrive expecting these colleges to offer a safe and accepting atmosphere. <\/p>\n

But some transgender students have negative experiences at women\u2019s colleges and can feel like they are being watched too closely, ignored or both. These problems aren\u2019t just because of interactions with other people. They can also occur when trans students encounter student records, bathrooms, housing and campus rules that assume everyone is either a man or a woman, or identifies with the sex they were assigned at birth.<\/p>\n

Transgender students often report that college can feel less welcoming to them. Research on trans college students shows that academic, cocurricular, peer and institutional contexts shape how welcoming or alienating campus feels.<\/p>\n

My research with other colleagues also examines how trans and queer students thrive in college, whether at co-ed or women\u2019s colleges. Many form close-knit communities and are vital members of their campuses. The difficulties trans students face are not inherent to being trans. I believe they are produced by policies and systems that marginalize them because they are trans.<\/p>\n

Barring transgender people from attending women\u2019s colleges would block a higher education pathway for transgender and queer students.<\/p>\n

Women\u2019s colleges were created in response to gender inequality. I believe this history should push them to keep making college more open and supportive for students excluded because of gender.<\/p>\n

Read more Is baby talk bad? Why \u2018parentese\u2019 actually helps babies learn\u00a0language<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Smith College investigation marks the first time the Trump administration is considering whether trans students should gain admission to certain schools.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,33,31,26,29,32,27,30,28,34,35,25],"class_list":["post-12","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","tag-higher-education","tag-lgbtqi","tag-queer-students","tag-single-sex-colleges","tag-trans-rights","tag-trans-students","tag-transgender-students","tag-transwomen","tag-trump-administration","tag-university-of-pennsylvania","tag-us-colleges","tag-us-higher-education"],"yoast_head":"\nFederal investigation into Smith College probes whether transgender students can attend women\u2019s schools \u2013 challenging the evolving mission of women\u2019s\u00a0education - Pro Relocation Team<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/prorelocationteam.com\/?p=12\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Federal investigation into Smith College probes whether transgender students can attend women\u2019s schools \u2013 challenging the evolving mission of women\u2019s\u00a0education - 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