Nashville Banner

More than 170 of the 241 Tennessee private schools eligible to receive state-funded vouchers in the first year of the Education Freedom Scholarship program have a publicly listed admission inclusion policy. Many of the schools post a version of this legal disclaimer: “Our school does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, disability, or any other characteristic protected by law.” Even within the different iterations of that statement, however, schools begin to carve out certain groups of students, with many removing references to sexual orientation and disability. In an analysis of school policies and handbooks — which are not uniformly available but are shared publicly at a school’s discretion — the Banner found schools routinely cite religious affiliation and low bandwidth to exclude LGBTQ+ students and those with disabilities from policies.