Men’s school redefines ‘male’

Atlanta’s all-male, historically black Morehouse College announced Saturday that starting in 2020 it would open admission to female students who identify as men. The school’s newly released gender identity policy states that “in recognition of our changing world and evolving understanding of gender identity, Morehouse will now consider for admission applicants who live and self-identify as men, regardless of the sex assigned to them at birth.”

Other single-gender colleges also have grappled with transgender admissions in recent years. Morehouse’s all-female sister school, Spelman College, in 2017 said it would allow men who identify as women to enroll. Massachusetts’ Smith College found itself in the spotlight in 2013 when it rejected a male applicant who identified as a woman. The women’s liberal arts college later revisited its policies and in 2015 began admitting anyone who identified as female.

Morehouse began in 1867, two years after the Civil War ended, as a Baptist college to educate African American men as teachers and preachers. It remains one of only four all-male four-year colleges in the United States and the only all-male historically black college. The school has educated numerous well-known African American male leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr., former U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, and filmmaker Spike Lee.

The acceptance of biological female students represents a radical departure from the school’s 150-year tradition, but the move has met virtually no public criticism.

“I can’t say we had any real pushback,” Terrence Dixon, Morehouse’s vice president for enrollment management, told Indie Central on Wednesday. The only major concerns of the change have come from LGBT activists who say the policy does not go far enough because it only applies to people who identify as male. Morehouse will not admit men who identify as women, and men who adopt a transgender identity while matriculating at the college will not be eligible for graduation. Morehouse will “continue to use gendered language that reflects our identity as a men’s college,” the policy states.

In a Breakpoint commentary earlier this year, John Stonestreet, president of the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview, pointed out how people who question the wisdom of gender transition are increasingly trolled, shunned, and even taken to court.

“Questioning the sacredness and inviolability of the desire to transition invites the digital equivalent of the wrath of the gods that ancient Polynesians feared for violating taboos,” Stonestreet said. Maybe that is why so few alumni, students, and other onlookers are questioning whether Morehouse should shift from its 150-year mission of developing African American (biological) male leaders.