School founder Indiana Fletcher Williams, around the turn of the 20th century.
Sweet Briar College, located 12 miles north of Lynchburg in Virginia, has implemented a new policy barring transgender women from being admitted. The college claims the decision was based in part by the last wishes of its founder Indiana Fletcher Williams, requiring the institution to be “a place of ‘girls and young women.’”
While it is extremely unlikely Williams could have understood the concept of transgender women at that time, a new policy instituted by the school and extrapolated from Williams’ own words, now requires an aplicant “confirm that her sex assigned at birth is female, and that she consistently lives and identifies as a woman.”
“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.
Sweet Briar has a student body of 460 students. Founded in 1901 and opened in 1906 on Williams’ estate — some of the schools buildings are part of a former plantation located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
The policy has garnered criticism from both students and faculty, fearing the policy will push people away from attending the college, which has faced its fair share of financial challenges in the last decade.
Williams’ will — the same one being used to defend the anti-trans policy — also states the school was to be a place “for the education of white girls and young women.”
John Gregory Brown, an English professor and faculty senate chair at Sweet Briar College, believes the logic behind the new admittance policy is “absurd.”
“Williams also wouldn’t have entertained the notion that somebody who was disabled would be a potential student,” he said in an interview carried by AP.
The faculty voted 48 to 4, with one abstention, to call on the school’s board to rescind the policy, according to Brown. In addition to the faculty vote, the Sweet Briar College Student Government Association also spoke against the policy, calling it “alienating, unnecessary, and [that] it reflects the rise of transphobia in our country.”
“And there are allies here who may identify as women but have friends and lovers and family members who are nonbinary, genderqueer and transgender,” said Association President Isabella Paul, a senior who identifies as nonbinary. “So this is also affecting their pride in their institution.”
Women’s colleges in the U.S. began to admit transgender women about a decade ago, and now, there are 23 historically women’s colleges admitting trans women. Only three all-women’s colleges — including Sweet Briar — bar trans women completely from applying.
“It really excludes any student who would be offended by those positions … who doesn’t want to be in a place where discrimination is codified in this way,” Brown said. “I think it’s a financially disastrous decision for the college.”
