By Lucy Carroll
Newington College is free to forge ahead with its plans to admit girls after a high-profile bid to stop the private school from becoming co-educational failed in the Supreme Court.
Justice Guy Parker on Wednesday ruled in favour of the school, concluding that the word “youth” in the college’s 1873 trust deed was used in a gender-neutral sense and “does not mandate male-only enrolment at the college”.
The historic Newington College in Stanmore is set to go co-ed from 2026.Credit: Louie Douvis
A legal showdown over the inner west school’s controversial move to admit girls hinged on a legal interpretation of a single word – youth – which was contained in the college’s original deed of indenture.
“A claim for a declaration of the contrary, which was the subject of the separate hearing, fails and must be dismissed,” Parker said.
The private school has been embroiled in a bitter public feud for months over its decision to go co-ed, which was first announced to parents and students in November 2023.
Late last year, a current Newington student launched action in the NSW Supreme Court alleging the school’s governing council contravened the terms of the school’s 19th-century charitable trust by implementing its plan to enrol female students.
Parker ordered the student to pay the council of Newington College’s legal costs.
At a hearing earlier this month, lawyers for the plaintiff argued the word “youth” in the school’s original deed was “limited to the advancement of education of boys and young men”.
Lawyers clashed over the definition; Noel Hutley, SC, acting for Newington, argued the 1873 meaning of youth was a collective noun for young men and women.
“The ordinary meaning of youth as a collective is gender-neutral,” Hutley said.
Michael Izzo, SC, represented student A in Newington College’s co-ed court case.Credit: Janie Barrett
He submitted that the Oxford English Dictionary pointed to youth having a non-gendered meaning, and that was constant in all dictionaries from 1848 through to today.
Michael Izzo, SC, acting for opponents of coed, said at the hearing earlier this month that “there is at least one possibility that ‘youth’ when used in particular context is being used to refer to men alone”.
Izzo cited a Barclay’s 1848 dictionary containing a definition of youth as being “the part of life which is between childhood and manhood”, from adolescence to young man.
Solicitors for the co-ed opponents commissioned a report from lexicographer and historian Amanda Laugesen, who is the director of the Australian National Dictionary Centre at ANU.
Laugesen conducted extensive research into the meaning of the term “youth”, and about 500 historical newspaper articles in the report were provisionally admitted into evidence.
The boy who launched proceedings – known as student A – cannot be identified, after he obtained a non-publication order based upon a psychiatrist’s report that said he could be bullied or shunned if his identity were to become known.
The 162-year-old college plans to admit girls in the junior school from next year and become fully co-ed by 2033.
The decision sparked fierce backlash and protests from parents and alumni of the $45,000-a-year school, who have spent months lobbying to have the move overturned.
In his judgment, Parker wrote that he was presented with extensive extracts from dictionaries for guidance on the meaning of some terms in the deed and the word youth.
Definitions from historical dictionaries including Barclay’s, Webster’s, Chambers’s Etymological Dictionary, The Imperial Dictionary and A Dictionary of Law were in evidence.
“The attempt by counsel for student A to explain away the gender-neutral language of the deed by saying that everyone would simply have assumed that the pupils would all be boys or young men was, I thought, unconvincing,” Parker wrote.
“In my opinion the meaning of the term youth in [clause three] of the deed is unambiguous.”
In a letter to parents on Wednesday afternoon, college principal Michael Parker said he welcomed the court’s decision affirming the move to co-education.
“We have been steadfast in our position throughout these proceedings, and we remain excited to build on our rich history and traditions by taking Newington into our next era,” Parker said.
Barrister Noel Hutley represented Newington College.Credit: Janie Barrett
“We are optimistic that today’s determination will now pave the way for our community to move forward together.”
The student’s civil suit was supported and funded by the Save Newington College group, a coalition of old boys and parents opposed to the co-ed move.
In a statement, Save Newington said the group was disappointed by the court’s decision.
Former student and Save Newington spokesman Ian Webster said there “will be detailed consideration of the reasons behind the judgment before any further decisions are made”.
Webster said an appeal had not been ruled out.
“Today’s decision, while respected, is at odds with the understanding held by generations of old boys, parents, staff, and community members – that Newington was founded, funded and entrusted as a school for boys,” the Save Newington statement said.
The group said the case highlighted the “many risks and pitfalls that will be encountered” by moving to a co-ed model.
The group said risks remain about the “future academic and financial performance of the school and continuation of its GPS traditions”.
“Particular challenges around … anticipated pushback from surrounding all-girls schools and retreat by former supporters of the Newington Foundation have not been addressed.”
In late 2023, some members of the Newington Founders Society indicated they would be withdrawing their bequests to the school.
Newington was founded in 1863 due to a growing view in the Wesleyan Methodist Church that a secondary school was needed in Sydney. The college opened in Silverwater, then moved to Stanmore in 1880.
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