Mills was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary at Benicia in 1852. In 1865,
missionaries Cyrus and Susan Mills purchased the seminary, and in 1871 they relocated it to
a new campus in the East Bay foothills in Oakland. In 1889, Mills became the first college
to grant Bachelor of Arts degrees to women west of the Mississippi River. In 1921, Mills
granted its first master's degrees.In 1990, with enrollment declining, trustees announced a plan to open Mills'
undergraduate programs to men. Students mounted a vigorous protest in defense of its 138-year history as a women's college,
attracting national news coverage and support from women's colleges across the United States. Later that same year, the trustees
reversed their position and "reaffirmed Mills' commitment" to remain a single-sex undergraduate institution.