Sweet Briar College, a women’s school in Virginia, recently announced that it will no longer admit trans-identifying students, citing its founder’s will.
The private women’s liberal arts school, which was established in 1901 through the estate of Indiana Fletcher Williams, did not previously have any policies regarding gender identity. However, recent changes to the Common Application, a nonprofit organization that allows students to apply to schools on one standardized form, prompted the college to make some changes of its own.
In addition to “female” and “male,” the Common Application, used by more than 1,000 colleges, now allows students to select “X” or “another legal sex.”
According to Jenny Rickard, the nonprofit’s president and chief executive officer, the updates “represent the next step in an ongoing effort to create an equitable, just, and inclusive college admission process for all students -- no matter how they identify.”
