Students at a prestigious American women-only college are at loggerheads with senior staff after they voted to allow trans men to attend the institution.

The proposal made by students to the board of trustees at Wellesley College would see applications accepted from transgender men and all nonbinary individuals, regardless of their assigned gender at birth.

But the non-binding vote puts the student body at odds with Paula Johnson, the college president, who has faced a fierce backlash for resisting the move and insists the college has no plans to change its admissions policy.

The college was founded in 1870 with the goal of providing a rigorous liberal arts education for women and counts former secretaries of state Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright, as well as Soong Mei-ling, the former first lady of China, among its alumni.

Some 2,400 undergraduates attend the college, set in 500 acres of land outside Boston, where fees cost in excess of $60,000 a year.

The current gender policy states: “Wellesley invites applications from all those who live as women and consistently identify as women.”

Transgender women - those assigned male at birth who identify as women - are eligible for admission.

Transgender men - those assigned female at birth who identify as men - are not.

‘College has no plans to rewrite its founding mission’

Ms Johnson says that the referendum would rewrite Wellesley’s founding mission to educate women and the college has no plans to do so.

“Wellesley College acknowledges the result of the nonbinding student ballot initiative,” the college said in a statement.

“Although there is no plan to revisit its mission as a women’s college or its admissions policy, the College will continue to engage all students, including transgender male and nonbinary students, in the important work of building an inclusive academic community where everyone feels they belong.”

The position has caused trouble on campus, with some students holding a sit-in at the administration building. The student newspaper’s editorial board wrote that “we disapprove and entirely disagree” with the president.

For her part, Ms Johnson says the debate has become unhealthy and that there was enormous social pressure for students to support the referendum.

“I’ve been personally booed at public gatherings where I’ve referred to Wellesley as a women’s college, which it is,” Ms Johnson said.

Elizabeth Um, president of the campus’s anti-abortion group, Wellesley For Life, said she chose to attend Wellesley because she wanted to attend a women’s college.

“If you don’t think you can fit in here, then you have your pick of thousands of other co-ed colleges in the country or the world,” she told the New York Times.

“We’re a women’s college. That’s the core identity of the school, and we can’t start watering that down.”