The Trump administration just did something that should’ve happened years ago. On Monday, the Department of Education opened an investigation into Smith College, one of the country’s most prestigious all-women’s institutions, for admitting biological men who identify as women. Let that sink in for a moment. A women’s college that’s supposed to exist specifically to provide educational opportunities for women is now being scrutinized for doing the exact opposite of its founding mission.
The probe centers on whether Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, violated Title IX by allowing males who claim to be women onto campus and into intimate facilities designated for actual women. The investigation follows a complaint filed nearly a year ago by Defending Education, a watchdog organization that’s been doing the work too many people are afraid to do. The complaint alleges something pretty straightforward: admitting men into a women’s college discriminates against women. This isn’t rocket science.
Here’s what gets me about this whole situation. We’ve spent decades building institutions specifically for women, recognizing that sometimes separate spaces serve important purposes. Women’s colleges emerged because women were excluded from educational opportunities. They became havens where young women could learn, lead, and thrive without the social dynamics that sometimes complicate coed environments. These institutions mattered. They still should.
But somewhere along the line, we decided that feelings trump reality. That self-identification carries more weight than biological fact. That saying you’re something makes it so, regardless of what every cell in your body says otherwise. It’s magical thinking dressed up as progressive policy, and it’s women who pay the price.
The Office of Civil Rights confirmed in a letter to Defending Education that it’s investigating whether Smith’s policies violate federal law. Think about the irony here. Title IX was designed to protect women from discrimination in education. Now it might be the very tool that stops a women’s college from erasing what it means to be a woman. The law that opened doors for female athletes and students could be what finally pushes back against this nonsense.
Smith College isn’t some small community institution flying under the radar. It’s one of the largest women’s colleges in America, part of the prestigious Seven Sisters. When a place like this abandons its core mission, it sends a message to every other women’s institution in the country. It tells them that standing up for women is somehow discriminatory. That maintaining spaces for biological females is bigotry.
You know what’s actually discriminatory? Telling young women that their discomfort with sharing intimate facilities with biological males doesn’t matter. That their concerns about privacy, safety, and dignity are less important than validating someone else’s identity. We’ve created a hierarchy of victimhood where women, the very group these colleges were built to serve, now rank below men who identify as women.
The complaint was first reported by The Daily Wire back in June, but it’s taken months to get to this point. That’s how these things work in the bureaucratic maze of federal agencies. But credit where it’s due: this administration is actually following through. Previous leadership would’ve buried this complaint or dismissed it outright as transphobic. Instead, we’re getting a real investigation into whether an institution receiving federal funding can legally discriminate against women in the name of inclusion.
This goes beyond just one college in Massachusetts. It’s about whether we’re going to let ideology completely override biology, whether institutions designed specifically for women can continue to exist in any meaningful way. If women’s colleges can’t be for women, then what’s the point? Just call them colleges and drop the pretense.
The investigation will determine if there’s merit to the complaint, but honestly, the facts aren’t complicated. Smith admits biological males. Those males use facilities meant for women. The college markets itself as a women’s institution while doing something fundamentally at odds with that identity. Sometimes the truth is just that simple, no matter how many academic theories you stack on top of it.
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