Today, the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) initiated a Title IX investigation into Western Carolina University (WCU).
This investigation comes amid allegations that WCU has openly refused to comply with Title IX and to ensure sex-separated intimate spaces in federally funded institutions of higher education. There are also credible reports that WCU allowed a male to room with a female in a girls’ dormitory and that WCU opened an investigation against a female student for asking a male student to leave a female locker room.
“WCU’s reported contempt for federal antidiscrimination laws and indifference to, and retaliation against, girls who have spoken up about males invading their intimate spaces is simply unacceptable,” said Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor. “After fighting for years to secure Title IX protections, women must again fight hostile institutions to ensure their right to equal protection and opportunity in sports, living spaces, and intimate facilities is respected. The Trump-McMahon Department of Education will continue to deploy every lawful means to eradicate this wholly unnecessary and egregious violation of women and girls’ civil rights.”
“Western Carolina University has perpetrated a policy that is not in full compliance with Title IX. The violation has impacted not only me but many other female students at the university that deserve our rights to single-sex spaces," said Payton McNabb, Independent Women's Forum Ambassador and former Western Carolina University Student. "In addition to my experience discovering a male in the women’s restroom on campus, men who self-identify as transgender are entering other women’s intimate spaces like restrooms, dorm rooms and locker rooms. Female college students will not sit idly by as men take over our spaces. I’m thankful to have an administration that will stand up for us.”
Background
According to credible reporting citing emails from WCU administration, WCU administrators said that the university was “not making changes based on [President Trump’s Executive Order,]” and that they would “continue to analyze allegations of sex discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.” Independent from the President’s Executive Orders, Title IX prohibits discrimination “on the basis of sex,” not the subjective concept of “gender identity.”
In 2024, WCU student Payton McNabb, who previously suffered brain damage after a male opponent spiked a ball in her face at her high school volleyball match, faced a Title IX investigation at WCU after taking a video of herself asking a male to remove himself from the women’s bathroom. WCU reportedly eventually dropped the investigation against McNabb after determining she acted politely, but WCU continues to assert that it will not change its policies to comply with Title IX.
A female WCU student also reportedly left a university dormitory after she was assigned to share a room with a male student claiming a female identity.
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.