After more than 150 years of educating female students, Harpeth Hall is reexamining its gender policy.
Eli Motycka of the Nashville Scene was the first to report the change in Harpeth Hall’s policy on Wednesday.
The elite private school recently wrote in its “Gender Diversity Philosophy”: “Harpeth Hall is a girls school. The school culture is unique and distinctly about girls, complete with the use of references to students as girls and young women and the collective use of female pronouns. Any student who identifies as a girl may apply to our school,”
There’s been an increased focus on the school’s approach to gender after the student-run newspaper published an editorial in 2021, calling on the school’s administration to formally recognize transgender students and include trans voices in the curriculum.
School administrators told Motycka “that there have been many years of ongoing conversations about gender diversity at Harper’s Hall. This was probably a couple of weeks ago that I first contacted the school in my reporting,” Motycka said on This Is Nashville on Friday. “They were kind of just explaining that it was something that they were taking really seriously, that they were discussing with students and families.”
The school, which includes a high school and a middle school, publicly released the gender diversity philosophy after Motycka’s story was published. Jess Hill, Harpeth Hall head of school, also wrote a column for The Tennessean.
Neither Hill’s column or the updated policy explicitly state if students who openly identify as transgender or nonbinary will be allowed at the private school.
Current Harpeth Hall senior and former WPLN intern Hallie Graham said the school needs to clarify its policy.
“I understand why Harpeth Hall has joined the conversation. Prospective parents and prospective students need to hear this. … I do appreciate as a current student them coming out with this, but I do wish they would give some clarity on this issue,” said Graham. “I do appreciate this first step, but I do look for more honesty in the coming days.”
This echos what Motycka has heard from others in the Harpeth Hall community.
“Even with the statement I’ve heard from a lot of folks, parents, alums, about what they feel like is the ambiguity with the statement, they’re not sure whether this is inclusive of trans students, trans male students or trans female students or non-binary students. They’re just there’s so many questions still out there, like we just heard,” he said.
Harpeth Hall is one of three gendered private schools in Nashville. Neither the all-girls St. Cecilia Academy or all-boys Montgomery Bell Academy commented on their gender policies for the Scene article.
“I think that Harpeth Hall has stepped out and … have been going through a process to address it,” said Motycka. “I think that comes with the brunt of the scrutiny while MBA and St. Cecilia are just choosing not to wade into it. Even if they think that it’s not an issue within their student body, it doesn’t mean that they don’t need to come out with gender diversity or they don’t need to address it at all.”
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