In 1996, when the late writer Nora Ephron spoke at her alma mater, Wellesley College, an all-female liberal-arts college in Massachusetts, she told the graduating class: “Whatever you choose, however many roads you travel, I hope that you choose not to be a lady.”
Ephron may have been surprised by just how literally the class of 2023 takes that message. Rather than reject stereotypes, today’s class rejects biology.
Last week, the student body at Wellesley College passed a ballot initiative on gender inclusivity. The initiative was not for the benefit of men who “consistently identify as women,” whom the school has welcomed since 2015. Nor even for females who identify as non-binary yet “feel they belong in our community of women” who are also already admitted.
Rather, it was for all remaining groups in need of inclusion — women who identify as men (which is fair, as women who identify as men are actually women) and men who don’t even identify as women (which is absurd). The students also sought to overhaul gendered language they deemed potentially offensive, replacing terms such as “women” with “students,” “she/her” with “they/them,” and “alumnae” with “alumni.”
Wellesley is under no obligation to honor the results of student referendums. Nevertheless, the student revolt has them on the back foot.
“Although there is no plan to revisit its mission as a women’s college or its admissions policy,” Wellesley’s leadership wrote, “the College will continue to engage all students, including transgender male and nonbinary students, in the important work of building an inclusive academic community where everyone feels they belong.”
In a memo, President Paula Johnson promised to “do better” at inclusion by using “important occasions, like commencement and convocation, to acknowledge our identity as a women’s college as well as recognize the gender diversity of our community.” She also pledged to do “more to acknowledge and respect individual identities” such as having students upload their preferred pronouns into an online system, announced the appointment of a new director for the Office of LGBTQ+ Programs and Services, and promised to expand “the number of all-gender bathrooms on our campus.”
She continued: “Our gender policy on our website previously stated that students who transition during their time at Wellesley will be supported if they feel a women’s college is no longer the right fit for them. We have removed this language to make clear that every student who is admitted to Wellesley belongs here.”
But why? On what grounds? The ballot’s drafters argue that they wish “to align the College’s messaging with the demographics and lived experiences of the student body.” And, unfortunately, they have a point.
As Ailie Wood, a co-author of the proposal, told NPR: “Wellesley is not currently a women’s college. . . . Your classmates are trans and nonbinary, your favorite events are run by trans and nonbinary students, and the people you pass in the dining hall or on the sidewalk every day are trans and nonbinary students. If the administration were to create policy to support this ballot question, this fact would not change.”
Johnson’s memo spoke of Wellesley’s 150-year mission of “educating women of all socioeconomic backgrounds.” Yet that mission shifted profoundly in 2015 when it unofficially adopted a new definition of woman and opened its doors to men.
Perhaps those in leadership naïvely thought that a few “trans women” here and there wouldn’t change much. Clearly, they were wrong. Appeasement was a foolish strategy for another reason: Transgender activists will never be satisfied with anything less than total submission.
A letter signed by 600 alumnae, faculty, and staff went further, stating that Wellesley had historically prioritized “the education and experience of cisgender women to the exclusion of students who identify as trans and non-binary” and that Johnson was only continuing that legacy: “We also categorically denounce the recent communication from President Johnson which falsely positions the inclusion of trans and non-binary students as a threat to the education and advancement of students who identify as women.”
The editorial board of the student newspaper, the Wellesley News, said it was “telling” that Johnson did not mention the “New York Times’ anti-trans pivot” or the “spike in anti-trans legislation in the United States.”
One alumna tweeted, “If stripping the ‘women’s college label means that Wellesley can be a more inclusive place, so be it.”
The student revolt isn’t a death sentence for this woman-only school. It’s an autopsy. It was Wellesley College that killed Wellesley College for women.