All-female Mills College in Oakland, Calif. will now admit male undergraduate students who identify themselves as female.
With its new admissions policy, the small, private liberal arts bastion of about 1,000 students will be the first single-sex undergraduate school in the nation to allow applicants to choose their own gender in spite of a lack of matching genitalia, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
“Mills shall not discriminate against applicants whose gender identity does not match their legally assigned sex,” reads the Mills College description of the policy. “Students who self-identify as female are eligible to apply for undergraduate admission. This includes students who were not assigned to the female sex at birth but live and identify as women at the time of application. It also includes students who are legally assigned to the female sex, but who identify as transgender or gender fluid.”
School officials encourage male students with transcript, financial aid and legal documentation indicating that they are, in fact, male to contact admissions staffers.
The policy statement adds that “self-identification shall be the driving force behind the College’s eligibility decision.”
However, if you were once a female but have undergone a surgical sex change operation to become male, you are out of luck at Mills.
“Students assigned to the female sex at birth who have undergone a legal change of gender to male prior to the point of application are not eligible for admission,” the policy reads.
An enrollment committee under the auspices of the Mills College board of trustees approved the new admission rules. They officially go into effect on Aug. 27, notes Campus Reform.
Brian O’Rourke, an admissions department spokesman at Mills, told the Chronicle that a handful of students — like three to five — identify each year as either transgender or some gender classification that is different from the way they turned out when they were born.
In 1990, in the midst of declining enrollment and financial struggles, officials at Mills attempted to admit males of any variety. However, after over 300 angry students held a two-week strike, alumnae created a financial plan to preserve the status of Mills as a women’s college, The Associated Press reported at the time.
Transgender issues are currently a touchy, hot-button issue at women’s colleges around the country.
In March 2013, prestigious, private, all-female, Smith College rejected the application of Calliope Wong — and returned his application fee — because of the absence of certain required lady parts. (RELATED: Transgender Student Denied Admission To All-Female Smith College)
“As you may remember from our previous correspondence, Smith is a women’s college, which means that undergraduate applicants to Smith must be female at the time of admission,” admissions dean Debra Shaver wrote in a letter to Wong.
At the same time, Smith does allow students to complete their degrees if they suddenly decide to switch genders.
“Once admitted, any student who completes the college’s graduation requirements will be awarded a degree,” Smith’s policy on the matter explains.
Earlier this month, The Daily Caller featured Smith as among America’s most leftwing schools. (RELATED: The 13 Most Rabidly Leftist, Politically Correct Colleges For Dirty, Tree-Hugging Hippies)
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