Prejudice posing as principle
Feds target women's colleges over... sexism?
May 17, 2026 Commencement Photo courtesy of Smith College
Barely two weeks before Smith College’s May 17 graduation, the federal Department of Education announced it was launching a civil rights investigation into the 150-year old higher education institution for women. That was based on a complaint last June from an outside group - a parents’ rights organization - that claimed Smith discriminated against women.
One of the country’s top liberal arts colleges, founded to give females a top-notch higher education when others wouldn’t, discriminating against women? On the face of it, that’s about as bad as it gets.
But look deeper and the bias is from the accusers. Smith is one of more than 40 educational institutions being similarly investigated by the Trump administration. Its alleged violation was recognizing and admitting transgender women.
“Allowing biological males into spaces designed for women raises serious concerns about privacy, fairness and compliance under federal law,” The New York Times quoted he Education department’s assistant secretary for civil rights, Kimberly Richey, as saying. “The Trump administration will continue to uphold the law and fight to restore common sense.”
What Richey didn’t say was that when Smith admitted its first transgender female in 2015, the U.S. Justice Department under then President Obama recognized civil rights protections based on gender identity under Title VII. But under Trump in 2017, Justice Department policy was revised to exclude the rights of transgender people.
Smith isn’t budging. “The college stands by and affirms all aspects of its Notice of Nondiscrimination, says its website, “and Smith will continue to consider any instance of gender-identity-based discrimination as a violation of our policies and principles.”
This whole story is rife with painful ironies. Smith and other women’s colleges got their start in the late 19th Century, and especially became popular when going to college was considered in conflict with women’s reproductive roles. Yet in 2026, the Trump administration is taking its cues on what America should look like from Project 2025, which prioritizes traditional marriages (male and female) and encourages mothers to stay home and raise lots of children.
It’s also hard to take Trump’s expressed concern for women’s rights seriously given his actions since taking office. Early in this term, he signed executive orders barring higher education programs on diversity, equity and inclusion from college curricula and admissions policies in schools that get federal funds. He has said that teaching about racial and gender discrimination is itself discriminatory. (Against whom, he didn’t specify. )
In reality, Trump didn’t even have a problem with trans women in the past, raising more suspicion that this is all politically motivated, to excite his MAGA base. In fact, in 2012, when he owned the Miss Universe pageant, he supported lifting a ban on transgender women competing in it.
His about-face might be laughable if the hypocrisy weren’t so blatant, and the consequences so hurtful to many. But this is where Trump’s real skill lies: in turning narratives inside out and making prejudicial actions look like principled ones. It diverts attention from his own missteps - whether in war, tariffs, the handling of the Epstein files or the mistreatment of immigrants.
But even as these investigations of colleges cloud this commencement season, it’s heartening to read the strong but subtle messages of solidarity delivered at Smith’s graduation. As the president of the student government association told fellow graduates, “It’s up to us to uphold Smith’s legacy of fighting against fear and closed-mindedness.”
The closing benediction by Smith’s director of Religious and Spiritual Life urged graduates to use Smith as their compass “when you travel from this place to any place where freedom to exist and the liberty to speak are challenged.”
As our collective understanding of gender identity evolves, Smith deserves credit for continuing to do the same, fulfilling its promise to educate women - especially when other colleges wouldn’t. When our freedom to exist as our authentic selves takes nothing away from anyone else’s, it should be no one else’s business. Period.
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The politics of fear, ignorance, warped ideologies and religious misinterpretation have somehow become normalized by segments of society. Those espousing the return of gender feudalism, reject science and try to install their prejudicial beliefs into our laws and culture as commonly accepted norms.
The damages of allowing such views to be accepted as mainstream,embrace a dogmatic view long believed to have been erased since the time of witchcraft, scarlet letters and subjugation of the innocent.
The Puritans who arrived at our shores were not here seeking religious freedom, but rather to enforce their own forms of religious barbarism.
Like a virus their prejudice has mutated into more virulent forms of discrimination and oppression.
Another spot on piece, Rekha. The blatant hypocrisy, bigotry, and misogyny of this administration never ceases to astound me as every day brings what I call “another WTF moment”. The America that I believe in doesn’t allow discrimination cloaked in righteousness and we must all continue to fight for the better version of ourselves. Thank you for your voice which helps us steer that course.