College bans trans students citing racist woman’s will from 1900

Virginia’s Sweet Briar College became one of the few women’s colleges in the nation to ban transgender people, sidelining the academic norm of allowing trans women into women’s colleges. And their reasoning has a lot of people calling out the school’s administration, including most of the college’s faculty.

“An applicant is qualified for admission if she confirms that her sex assigned at birth is female and that she consistently lives and identifies as a woman,” says the college’s admissions website.

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They say this policy stems from the will of Indiana Fletcher Williams, who died in 1900 and whose estate was used to found Sweet Briar College in 1901. Williams’ will says it is to “be a place of ‘girls and young women,’” which the college now interprets as excluding trans women. She outlined that the school was to be “for the education of white girls and young women,” according to the Associated Press. The college only accepted Black students after getting permission from a federal judge after the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

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Williams’ word “must be interpreted as it was understood at the time the Will was written,” according to university leadership in a letter earlier this month.

“Sweet Briar College believes that single-sex education is not only our tradition, but also a unique cultural and social resource,” President Mary Pope Hutson said in a statement.

The university faced immense backlash for this decision, particularly out of concerns that this decision could repel more students – including those who meet the criteria. The university nearly shut down in 2015, and it currently has 460 students.

John Gregory Brown, an English professor and faculty senate chair, called the policy “absurd” and “morally repugnant.”

“Williams also wouldn’t have entertained the notion that somebody who was disabled would be a potential student,” he said.

The faculty at the college voted 48-4 to ask the board to rescind the policy. One member abstained. A member of the board resigned over this new policy.

Additionally, the Student Government Association said the policy is “alienating, unnecessary, and it reflects the rise of transphobia in our country.” The president, Isabella Paul, is nonbinary and told AP that over 10% of students are transgender to some degree and don’t meet the policy’s requirements.

“And there are allies here who may identify as women but have friends and lovers and family members who are nonbinary, genderqueer, and transgender. So this is also affecting their pride in their institution,” said Paul.

There is no information on how this will affect current students. This policy was reportedly made in backlash to Common Application, a nonprofit that helps students apply to schools, adding an “X” marker to their applications. Sweet Briar called this “confusing.”

The school is exempt from recent Title IX rules from the Biden administration, which do not apply to college admission policies.

Only two other women’s colleges do not allow trans people, with 23 explicitly allowing trans women.

“We do not agree with these terms and we will continue to support, grow, and advocate for the LGBTQIA community on Sweet Briar’s campus regardless of these new terms,” the Gay, Lesbian, Or Whoever (GLOW) student group said on Instagram. “We also would like to thank our amazing student body, Alumni ,and our surrounding LGBTQIA community for all the love and support we have been receiving. We hope the love and support continues during this time.”

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