PROVIDENCE — Current and former students at Brown University expressed alarm Thursday at the university’s decision to adopt the Trump administration’s definition of “male” and “female,” arguing it shuns transgender and nonbinary students on a campus that is typically a beacon of inclusivity.
Brown agreed to adopt the definitions from President Trump’s executive orders on “restoring biological truth” and “keeping men out of women’s sports” as part of a sweeping agreement that restores millions of scientific research dollars to the university, and resolves an investigation by the federal government into alleged antisemitism on campus.
Those concessions are all the more notable on a campus where nearly 40 percent of students do not identify as straight, according to a 2023 survey published by the school newspaper, the Brown Daily Herald. Just over 22 percent of Gen Z identifies as LGBTQ+, according to a recent Gallup poll.
“To have made an agreement on the backs of our queer and trans friends is really shameful,” said Talia Reiss, co-president of Planned Parenthood Advocates at Brown, a student club that advocates for reproductive rights and gender-affirming care.
“Students want to feel like their identities are supported by the university,” Reiss said.
Reiss and co-president Cara Hutton, who are both studying public health, said the group was not “immediately concerned” about Brown’s promise, as part of the agreement, to not provide gender-affirming surgery or puberty blockers to minors, since few students at the university are under 18.
Brown has never performed such surgeries, and said it would refer those students to outside medical care; the agreement does not affect Brown University Health, the hospital system formerly known as Lifespan Corp., that now bears the university’s name.
“I’m not naive to the fact that Brown is a business and they need that money,” Hutton said. “It just seems like some really hard trade-offs for that money.”
Peter Swope, a 2024 graduate, said he saw the concession on gender as likely “symbolic,” but concerning nonetheless.
“While the practical impacts may be fairly limited, I’m disappointed in Brown equivocating at all on trans rights,” Swope said.
He questioned how the adoption of Trump’s definition of biological sex would apply to housing, for example, noting that a friend who identifies as a transgender woman had lived in single-gender housing on campus.
“Single-gender under the Trump administration’s definition means exclusively cis people, and not trans people,” Swope said.
According to the agreement, Brown will “ensure compliance with Title IX” by providing “safe and equitable opportunities and spaces for women” based on a person’s sex assigned at birth, including female-only housing and “locker rooms and bathrooms strictly separated on the basis of sex.”
President Christina Paxson was not available for an interview Thursday. But in a letter to students and faculty Wednesday Paxson wrote that Brown “agreed to abide by Title IX and NCAA eligibility rules regarding the participation of transgender athletes in intercollegiate sports,” and said the university will ‘continue to provide housing and restroom access in a way that allows for gender-inclusive, women-only and men-only options."
It is not clear if there are currently any transgender student athletes at the university.
James Kraemer, a 2008 Brown graduate who studied biophysics, said he was “shocked and upset” when he read the agreement. He and other alumni penned an open letter to Paxson on Thursday expressing “disgust” over the settlement, especially as alumni have been solicited for donations for months to help the university defend itself against Trump’s demands.
“I think they’re really doing a disservice to marginalized members of the community,” Kraemer said. “It’s really throwing non-cis-gender people to the wolves.”
He said that when he attended the university, Brown was at the forefront of progressive gender studies. “For the university, which has championed the study of this for decades to then say, ‘OK, we’re going to agree to that,’ is truly shameful and hurtful,” Kraemer said.
“It pains me to see the university ceding moral ground to this administration in exchange for research funding,” said Dylan Spaulding, a senior scientist in the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists who graduated from Brown in 2004. “Brown is throwing people under the bus in exchange for staying out of the cross-hairs, which is a cowardly betrayal of its principles.”
A Brown spokesperson, Brian Clark, said housing assignments for first-year students “will continue to be based on sex assigned at birth, with the ability for students to opt into gender-inclusive housing as they wish.”
“We remain fully committed to serving the health needs of all Brown students in a manner consistent with our long-established policy of nondiscrimination, which includes sex, gender identity and gender expression,” Clark said.
While the gender-related concessions drew the loudest reaction, Brown also agreed to provide data to the federal government to prove race is not a factor in admissions. The university also agreed not to have any programs with “race-based outcomes” or “diversity targets,” nor will the university “promote unlawful DEI goals.”
The agreement says Brown will maintain its academic freedom and the federal government will not interfere with what its professors teach. The Ivy League university agreed to provide $50 million to state workforce development efforts, and will not pay anything to the federal government, unlike Columbia University, which paid the government $220 million. Harvard University sued the administration over funding cuts, but is in negotiations about a possible deal.
It is unclear whether Brown’s agreement will influence those talks with Harvard, the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university. The administration has accused Harvard of pushing liberal ideology, and has claimed the school’s DEI programs lead to discrimination.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon celebrated the reversal of what she called the “decades-long woke-capture” of higher education.
“Aspiring students will be judged solely on their merits, not their race or sex,” McMahon said.
Rhode Island political and civic leaders offered split views on the settlement. Providence Mayor Brett Smiley’s office said he was “glad” Brown was able to preserve its “critical funding,” while Attorney General Peter Neronha expressed disappointment the school made a deal of any kind with Trump.
“I think he’s a blackmailer, frankly,” Neronha said. “My overall view is to fight, not give in, even if it requires sacrifice.”
Meanwhile, Adam Greenman, president of the Jewish Alliance of Rhode Island, praised the agreement, saying it “reaffirms the commitment that we have seen from President Paxson to ensure a thriving Jewish life on Brown’s campus.”
But Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, who penned a letter with other Jewish clergy in April about the federal government’s threats against Brown, said she was “outraged” by the agreement.
“I think this agreement will engender profound resentment towards Jewish students, and will draw a greater wedge between Jews and other communities with whom we have been in solidarity,” Ruttenberg said.
Steph Machado can be reached at steph.machado@globe.com. Follow her @StephMachado. Alexa Gagosz can be reached at alexa.gagosz@globe.com. Follow her @alexagagosz and on Instagram @AlexaGagosz.