NORTHAMPTON — A conservative legal group has targeted Smith College with a federal complaint over its decision to admit transgender women, alleging the school’s interpretation of Title IX to prohibit discrimination of gender identity is misguided.

The complaint was filed with the federal Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights on June 20 by Defending Education, an organization that describes itself as “working to restore schools at all levels from activists imposing harmful agendas.” The complaint was filed by the group’s Vice President Sarah Parshall-Perry, who formerly worked at the right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation.

“Discrimination based on gender identity is not the same as discrimination based on sex under Title IX, as this Department well knows, and the Supreme Court has never held it is,” the complaint says. “In other words, to the extent Smith’s accommodations for so-called gender identity encroach upon sex-specific programs and spaces, it is in violation of Title IX.”

The complaint cites United States v. Virginia, a 1996 Supreme Court ruling that struck down the male-only admissions policy of the Virginia Military Institute because it did not provide equal opportunity to women. The complaint argues that Smith’s policy of admitting transgender women adversely affects cisgender women on campus.

“The entire purpose of Title IX is to protect biological women in education,” the complaint states. “That purpose is directly undermined by policies that subordinate the fears, concerns, and privacy interests of biological women to the desires of transgender biological men who want to intrude upon spaces normally reserved for their female peers.”

Carolyn McDaniel, a spokesperson for Smith College, said the school had not yet received any official notification regarding the complaint, declining to comment further on the matter.

The complaint is part of a broader effort by conservatives pushing back against transgender rights since President Donald Trump’s election to his second term of office in 2024. Trump has issued numerous executive orders regarding transgender individuals in education, and in February the DOE announced it was launching an investigation into the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association, the organization that oversees high school athletics in the commonwealth, citing a girl’s basketball game in Lowell where a transgender player allegedly injured two opposing teammates.

In May, a review put out by the federal Department of Health and Human Services recommended against the use of medical treatment for gender dysphoria in youth.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee state law banning puberty blockers and hormone therapy for the treatment of gender dysphoria in minors.

Genny Beemyn, director of the Stonewall Center at UMass Amherst, which provides LGBTQ education, resources, said it was inevitable conservative activists would eventually set their sights on historical women’s colleges like Smith with regard to their policy on transgender students.

“Over the last decade, most historically women’s colleges have changed their admissions policies to consider trans women, often in response to student advocacy,” Beemyn said. “With Title IX now being weaponized against trans students, in contrast to its use before in support of trans students, it was only a matter of time before anti-trans groups went after these historically women’s colleges.”

Efforts by the Trump administration have been met with resistance in Northampton, a city considered a stronghold for the LGBTQ+ community. In October, Northampton passed a resolution declaring itself a “trans sanctuary city,” committing to never using city resources for detaining persons for seeking or providing gender-affirming care, including surgery or hormone therapy. The city also committed to never cooperating with or providing information to out-of-state agencies regarding any lawful gender-affirming care in Massachusetts.

It is unclear however, whether the idea in the complaint that Title IX did not apply to gender identity would hold up. The Supreme Court in 2020 ruled in Bostock v. Clayton County that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which covers discrimination in employment, did in fact apply to gender identity and sexual orientation on the basis that it was a form of sex discrimination. Neil Gorsuch, who was appointed by Trump during his first term, wrote the majority opinion for the court in that case.

But Beemyn said that should such a complaint reach the Supreme Court this time, the results could be different.

“Given the extremely conservative super majority on the Supreme Court, where many decisions this term were 6-3, including the Skrmetti case on Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care, it is very likely the court would agree with the suit and with the Trump administration, should the case reach the courts,” Beemyn said.

Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.