Australian Girls' School Defends Denying Same-Sex Prom Date

An Australian teen was denied permission to bring her same-sex date to a school dance and advised to find a boy to invite, media sources report. But the girl's school--a private school in Melbourne--denies that the student was not allowed to bring a girlfriend, saying that the student's girlfriend is a year younger, and the dance was only for students in a certain grade.

The student, Hannah Williams, 16, had wanted to bring Savannah Supski to the formal dance, reported British newspaper The Telegraph on Nov. 10. But she was told by administrators at Ivanhoe Girls' Grammar school that she would have to find a boy to bring as her date, the article said. The girl and her parents tried, and failed, to change the decision made by school administrators, the article said, and in the end Hannah did not attend the event. Her father has lodged a complaint against the private school, which costs about $18,000 per year for each student's tuition.

"It made me very upset," Hannah told the media. "I put a lot of effort into trying to fix things. I had meetings with principals; looked through the Equal Opportunity Act; all my friends put posters up around the school and the teachers ripped them down."

The commissioner of equal opportunity and human rights for the Province of Victoria, Helen Szoke, told the press that the case may represent a violation of anti-discrimination laws. Szoke said that the school may have breached the Equal Opportunity Act.

Ivanhoe headmistress Heather Schnagl disagreed. "I don't think it's appropriate they feel discriminated against, and I'm very upset they feel that," Schnagl told the media. The headmistress told Radio 3AW that the issue had not been that Hannah wanted to bring another girl to the formal, but that Savannah, at age 15, is in an earlier grade, a Nov. 10 story in Australian newspaper the Herald Sun reported.

"We are very very supportive, but the issue here is that it was a year 11 event and it was inappropriate to enable year 10s to attend," said Schnagl. "It's not a discrimination based on sexual orientation. It was trying to keep it a year 11 event." Schnagl admitted that Hannah was advised to bring a boy, or attend by herself, but said that if Hannah had chosen a girl in her own grade to invite, that would have been allowed.

Hannah disputed this, saying that girls were allowed to bring younger boys to the formal.

Comment and Controversy

The story prompted commentary and controversy. A Melbourne educator named Mike Stuchbery penned an op-ed for Australian news site ABC.net in which he allowed that he could see the point of keeping school dances restricted to mixed-gender dates, but only from the point of view of harassed teachers looking to keep order. Stuchbery ventured to say that the issue of gay and lesbian students bringing same-sex dates fell into similar social territory as racially desegregating school formals, noting that some schools in the American South had only recently allowed for mixed-race couples to attend school dances.

"Those were and are civil rights issues, and at the heart of the matter, the case of Hannah Williams is one too," wrote Stuchbery. "Much like those in the sixties strived to end the barriers between color, it is becoming increasingly clear that the civil rights struggle of the 21st century is that of equality between sexualities. Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are seeking an end to the societal perceptions and barriers that allow them to lead a happy, open life.

"While Hannah is not yet an adult, she's damn close and we'd be doing ourselves and our students a disservice if we attempted to dissuade or stop her from being who she is--from what I've heard, an articulate, intelligent young woman," Stuchbery added.

"Really, as educators, shouldn't we be going out of our way to helping bring about change by reinforcing a message of openness and tolerance?" Stuchbery continued. "Here in Victoria we have the Safe Schools Coalition, in which GLBT and straight students form groups to better stamp out the curse of homophobia and offer a safe place for queer students, who have faced discrimination, physical and verbal abuse and exclusion elsewhere. We need to have more schools involved in such programs, presenting a united front and sending the message: we stand by our students and who they are."

At Australian newspaper The Age, journalist Denise Ryan penned an op-ed in which she suggested that school dances simply not require students to bring dates. "The school formal is an important rite of passage for teenagers, but some don't go because they can't rustle up an appropriate partner," Ryan wrote, before relating how a friend had become upset that her teenaged son was not able to find a date to take to a school dance. "Another girl I know asked the boys she knew, only to find they already had partners," wrote Ryan. "She was crushed at missing out on a milestone event."

Ryan went on to add, "Isn't it time we let students go along to school formals without a date? That would take the pressure off so many marginalized teenagers." Noted Ryan, "La Trobe University's studies on gay teenagers and high school indicate that many don't go to a school formal. In fact, the research shows that most young people remain silent about their orientation until they have left school... For many gay people, the high school years are the hardest of their lives."

The case has drawn comparisons to that of Constance McMillen, the 18-year-old Mississippi lesbian who took her high school to court when the school refused to allow her to attend prom in a tux, with her girlfriend in tow. Faced with the suit, the school canceled prom altogether--then, when the case went to court anyway, the school promised to organize an inclusive school dance, only for most of the students to gather at one location while Constance and a handful of others were shunted to a poorly attended separate event. (The Itawamba School Board subsequently denied having mounted what the media characterized as a "sham prom" for Constance and a handful of less popular kids.)

Constance went on to become a poster child for GLBT youth: self-assured, relaxed before the camera. She appeared on Ellen DeGeneres' televised talk show and Michelangelo Signorile's radio program, and attended a plethora of GLBT events, including New York's Pride march, where she served as one of three grand marshals. More recently, she got a chance to wear a tuxedo tailored for her by Isaac Mizrahi, when she attended the Glamour Awards--and claimed a prize for Woman of the Year.

Hannah and Savannah have both transferred to a public school, news accounts said.