The Department of Education (DOE) announced Monday that it has opened a formal Title IX investigation into Smith College, one of the country’s largest all-women’s colleges, over the school’s policy that reportedly allows biological males to be admitted and enter what may be considered private areas throughout campus.
The DOE will now work to determine whether the college violated Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 by allowing biological males into women’s “intimate spaces,” including dormitories, bathrooms, locker rooms, and even spots on their sports teams.
“An all-women’s college loses all meaning if it is admitting biological males,” said Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey. “Allowing biological males into spaces designed for women raises serious concerns about privacy, fairness, and compliance under federal law. The Trump Administration will continue to uphold the law and fight to restore common sense.”
At the center of the investigation is a basic question: how should Title IX’s exception for single-sex schools be interpreted?
Title IX, passed in 1972, bars sex-based discrimination in any education program or activity that receives federal funding. The law contains a single-sex exception that allows colleges to enroll all-male or all-female student bodies. However, the DOE says that the exception is meant to apply based on biological sex, not a person’s gender identity.
The prohibition on sex discrimination in admissions does not apply to private undergraduate colleges. However, all other programs and activities of private undergraduate colleges – including single-sex colleges like Smith – are governed by Title IX if the college receives any federal financial assistance. This distinction is key to the investigation. Even if Smith College can set its own admissions rules, what happens on campus – like in dorms, locker rooms, and sports teams – the college must follow federal civil rights laws.
Smith, which opened in 1875 and is located in Northampton, Massachusetts, is one of the largest women’s colleges in the country, with more than 2,500 undergraduates.
In 2015, Smith’s board of trustees voted to change the college’s admissions policy to include “transgender” women.
This week’s investigation stems from a complaint filed with the DOE in June of 2025 by the conservative legal group Defending Education, which claimed that the liberal arts college was violating Title IX because its admissions policy had started to allow biological males access into those previously sex-segregated spaces.
“The College is fully committed to its institutional values, including compliance with civil rights laws,” a spokesperson for Smith College told The Guardian, adding that the school “does not comment on pending government investigations.”
The investigation into Smith follows a pattern in education policy changes under Trump’s team. After taking office in January of 2025, the Trump administration reinstated the 2020 Title IX rules, arguing they protect against sex-based discrimination as defined by biological sex, and rolled back Biden-era policies it said went too far in focusing on “gender identity.”
On January 20, 2025, Trump also issued an executive order announcing the administration’s policy “to recognize two sexes, male and female” and that these sexes “are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”
Smith may be the first domino to fall. Other women’s colleges across the country have reportedly opened their doors to biological males – Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, and Barnard among them – and could soon face the same federal scrutiny if they violate DOE guidelines.
Closer to home, readers may be familiar with Texas Woman’s University in Denton, but TWU would not fall under the same legal framework, as the university has admitted men at the graduate level since 1972 and at the undergraduate level since 1994, making it a coeducational institution rather than an all-women’s college like Smith.
