Education Dept. probing all-women's Smith College for admitting trans women

Politics Education Department investigating all-women's Smith College for admitting trans women May 5, 2026 / 5:18 AM EDT / CBS/AP Add CBS News on Google The U.S. Department of Education says it opened an investigation Monday into Smith College, an all-women's institution in Massachusetts, for admitting transgender women.In a press release, the department says Smith has been "admitting biological men."The probe by the department's Office of Civil Rights will look at whether the college violated Title IX, a 1972 law forbidding discrimination based on sex in education. The move is the latest by the Trump administration - whose rhetoric has frequently included attacks on trans people - to limit transgender rights in the U.S. The administration has said that Title IX prevents trans women from participating in women's sports, suing several states and launching investigations into schools for not complying. Smith College, a private liberal arts school founded in 1871, has admitted trans women since 2015, along with many other elite women's colleges. The school's admission policies drew attention and sparked on-campus activism in 2013, when a trans high school senior was denied acceptance because her gender identity did not match the one on her financial aid forms. Its website now says that "any applicants who self-identify as women; cis, trans, and nonbinary women" are eligible to apply to the school. Advocates have supported the shift over the years, saying that women's colleges were founded to educate those marginalized because of their gender. The number of women's colleges in the U.S. has declined from more than 200 to just 30 as of fall of 2023, according to the Women's College Coalition. A college spokesperson did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. According to the department's news release, Title IX contains an exception that allows colleges to be all-male or all-female, but it only applies "on the basis of biological sex difference, not sub...