Parents' rights group files Title IX complaint against Smith College for allowing trans-identified males into women's-only school

Parents Defending Education has filed a complaint with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) over the inclusion of biological males in Smith College, a women’s school located in Massachusetts.

In a letter to the OCR, Parents Defending Education Vice President and Legal Fellow Sarah Parshall-Perry wrote, "Smith College is among the largest all-women’s colleges in the country. 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."

Parshall-Perry wrote that "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," and added that the college’s admission policy also appears to violate Title IX due to allowing biological males into the women’s-only school.

The admission policy provision on "Gender Identity and Expression" states that "people who identify as women—cis, trans and nonbinary women—are eligible to apply for Smith." For those who are not biological females and are seeking to apply to the school, they must only self-identify as a female.

"Ironically, in what appears to be yet another exercise in sex-discrimination, Smith admits natal men who identify as women but does not admit natal women who identify as men."

Additionally, Parshall-Perry noted that the school’s policies state that all restrooms on campus are "all-gender," there is an "all-gender locker room," and the school’s Health & Wellness Center "provides trans-affirming primary care, including hormone therapy."

For those students who "disagree with the college’s unlawful policies on gender identity and sex," the school has a "Bias Response Team" that investigates incidents of "bigotry, harassment, or intimidation" based on characteristics such as gender identity and expression," and includes things such as "slurs, graffiti, written messages, or images that harass or intimidate individuals or groups because of their membership in the above protected classes."

Parshall-Perry wrote that Smith’s "gender-identity-based Equal Opportunity Policy; its admissions policy, which accepts natal men in lieu of similarly situated female applicants; and its all-gender restroom and locker room policies, which divest female students of their privacy, safety, and equal educational opportunity, all appear to violate Title IX."

"Accordingly, we ask the Department promptly investigate all the allegations in this complaint, act swiftly to remedy unlawful policies and practices, and order appropriate relief," Parshall-Perry concluded.

She said in a statement, "On the anniversary of Title IX, it bears remembering that Title IX was passed after an extensive campaign from women's rights activists and a federal court decision holding that high school girls were not entitled to the same athletic opportunities as boys. Yet today, some institutions of higher education, including those that hold themselves out to be single-sex, appear to adhere to the notion that sex is fungible -- even something that arch feminist Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote was false."

"Our organization is keenly interested in ensuring equality of educational opportunity for all students, and it is our hope that when assessing the "female-only" policies of colleges like Smith, the Department of Education will take a closer look at that college's possible attempts to rewrite Title IX, and allow transgender-identified males access to women's-only spaces and admission slots. Those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it. Today and always, Title IX is worth celebrating, protecting, and enforcing so that men and women can truly be equal--and equally protected--in American education."