OCR Opens Title IX Probe into Smith College Admissions

The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights opened a federal investigation on Monday into Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, to determine whether the historic women's institution's admissions policy violates Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination at schools receiving federal funding.

The probe stems from a civil rights complaint filed in June 2025 by Defending Education, a nonprofit organization. The complaint alleges that Smith discriminates against women by admitting men who identify as transgender women based solely on self-identification and allowing them access to women-only spaces, including dormitories, bathrooms, locker rooms, and athletic facilities. According to the Office for Civil Rights, Title IX includes an exception permitting single-sex admissions, but that exception applies to biological sex differences, not gender identity. "An all-girls college that enrolls male students professing a female identity would cease to qualify as single-sex under Title IX," the department stated.

Smith College, a founding member of the Seven Sisters consortium of women's colleges, has maintained its current policy since 2015, following an...