Mills College in Oakland, California decided to earn some major progressive points by becoming the first all-female college in the nation to accept male-to-female transgender students. Now the school is facing a major “financial emergency.”
Go figure.
The school made the announcement to allow entry to men who “identify” as women back in August of 2014. The following academic year, the school received less than 1,000 applications from interested undergrads.
“The board of trustees announced that Mills is currently running a $9 million yearly operating deficit. The $9 million shortfall is about 16 percent of the school’s 2017 budget of $57 million,” reports The Daily Caller.
Administrators and professor are expected to be cut from the university due to the budget crisis. College president Elizabeth L. Hillman is expecting to implement 35 layoffs, including even tenured professors.
The school’s policy currently allows for all students “who self-identify as female” eligible to apply. “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,” reads the school’s site.
Unfortunately, biological women who’ve legally changed their gender to male are persona non grata: “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.”
Still, the college’s trans policy remains in place, and Mills is set to implement an entirely revamped, progressive curriculum. The Daily Caller reports:
The new curriculum — “a bold new education experience” called MillsNext — “will provide students with the tools and confidence to solve complex problems, communicate across differences and take action aimed at transforming their communities and the world,” according to documents obtained by Inside Higher Ed.
Mills will focus its new curriculum on issues including “gender and racial justice.”
It’s remains unclear if the school’s financial crisis is directly tied to their progressive trans policy, but one might suspect as much.