BUZZ
The all-women’s Wellesley College is saying it follows the law after a Title IX complaint filed against it flags it for enrolling biologically male students who identify as female.
Defending Education on Wednesday filed the complaint against the school, arguing in a news release that by “admitting male students and housing them with female students in dorms that only have communal bathrooms, Wellesley has effectively eliminated female-only intimate spaces in these campus dorms.”
The watchdog group added: “Wellesley’s policies erase legal protections for female students and undermine their privacy, safety, and equal opportunity.”
In a statement Friday to Fox News, a college spokesperson said “Wellesley is proud to be a women’s college that has been educating women who make a difference in the world for 150 years. We remain committed to our mission, and believe that our policies comply with civil rights law.”
In 2015, the college announced that “transgender women,” or men who identify as women, could apply. The first “transgender women” began attending in the fall of 2017. In contrast, “transgender men” — who are biological women — are not allowed to attend Wellesley.
Defending Education’s 15-page complaint to the Education Department points out that Wellesley College was founded in 1870 to pioneer educational opportunities “for women.”
“Although Title IX prohibits discrimination ‘on the basis of sex,’ Wellesley instead prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity, even though the Department rejected such an interpretation many months ago. Gender identity discrimination is not the same as sex discrimination under Title IX, and the Supreme Court has never held otherwise,” the complaint states.
MORE: Students at Wellesley College: Stop calling us ‘women’
