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Community-noted claim + DEI ratio

The Citadel 'first woman' note

Mace invoked being 'the first woman to graduate from The Citadel' to oppose trans rights, drawing both a Community Note (a woman earned a Citadel graduate degree in 1970) and, separately, conservative commentator Matt Walsh's argument that The Citadel's forced admission of women made her a 'DEI graduate' by the same logic she was deploying.

Nancy Mace, Rolling Stone 'DEI Graduate' coverage
Nancy Mace, Rolling Stone 'DEI Graduate' coverage · Rolling Stone

On January 28, 2025, Rep. Nancy Mace posted on X invoking her status as "the first woman to graduate from The Citadel" to oppose transgender rights, writing that she "didn't fight like hell" for that achievement "just for some man in a miniskirt to take away that achievement." The post set off two separate waves of mockery, as Rolling Stone, MeidasTouch, and Latin Times each reported.

First, the factual claim itself was wrong: a Community Note on a later post (April 2025) clarified that Maxine Hudson had earned a Master of Arts in Teaching from The Citadel in 1970, making her the first woman to graduate from the institution. Mace's accurate claim is that she was the first woman to graduate from The Citadel's Corps of Cadets (1999). Second, and coming from the right, conservative commentator Matt Walsh argued that The Citadel was a male-only institution forced by law to admit women, and that Mace's admission therefore made her, by her own movement's logic, a "DEI graduate." (That characterization is Walsh's and those conservative commentators'; it represents their views.)

The January 28 tweet:

Mace's January 28 post, the tweet that drew the right-wing "DEI graduate" pile-on.

The April 27 post that received the Community Note:

Mace's April 27 post, the one that received the Community Note correction.

Community Note correction (cited by MeidasTouch reporting, verbatim note text not independently recovered):

Maxine Hudson earned a Master of Arts in Teaching from The Citadel in 1970, making her the first woman to graduate from the institution. Mace was the first woman to graduate from The Citadel's Corps of Cadets in 1999.

(MeidasTouch, reporting the Note's substance)

Matt Walsh's "DEI graduate" argument (from The Matt Walsh Show, The Daily Wire, January 28, 2025, as transcribed by Media Matters):

"The Citadel was a male-only space until it was forced by law to admit females, to admit you, in the name of diversity and inclusion. You were quite literally the beneficiary of a DEI program. You were a DEI graduate. That's what DEI is."

Walsh elaborated: "Forcing an institution to change their standards in order to admit a more diverse group of people, all in the name of being progressive and inclusive, is DEI. And it's also the exact same argument that trans identifying males use to invade female spaces."

Other conservatives who made similar arguments the same day, as documented by Rolling Stone: John Daniel Davidson wrote that Mace's graduation "wasn't an 'accomplishment'" and "damaged a proud historical institution"; Sean Davis argued Mace should not be "surprised" that transgender women would "invade female-only spaces," given that "a key part of your personal identity is having invaded a male-only institution."

Commentator Aaron Rupar wrote on X: "Bold move to brag about being a DEI candidate while attacking the very principles that allowed you to break barriers." (Latin Times)

Sources & related coverage