After staying up late to watch the Presidential election results the night before, Mikaela Ebrahemi ’28 steps off the bus onto the middle school campus and notices a cluster of red hats. As she gets closer, she realizes several students are wearing “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) hats to celebrate President Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election. Ebrahemi said seeing people wearing MAGA hats was unexpected.

“I was pretty surprised to see the amount of students who were wearing MAGA hats,” Ebrahemi said. “Overall, there were mixed reactions about the election.”

39% of students at the school reported personally becoming more conservative in recent years, while 47.5% of the student body reported that the general student body has become more conservative in recent years, according to a Chronicle poll. Barron Linnekens ’26 said he attributes the shift to a lack of inclusivity from the liberal party.

“People at the school are starting to understand their future looks better with conservative leadership of the state or country,” Linnekens said. “The left is so extreme that even if you agree with some of the things, if you don’t agree with all of them, the left pushes you away.”

Leader of Gender and Sexuality Awareness Club (GSA) Hudson Phillips ’27 said she has observed a rise of conservatism as the nation shifted towards the Republican Party with the election of President Trump.

“As a nation, caring a lot about different social issues has become less cool,” Phillips said. “In the stuff you see online and the way people act, making racist jokes has become more socially acceptable, and using derogatory language has become more normalized. This is in parallel with the 2024 Presidential election and is what caused Trump to win. Young voters specifically shifted further right than [they] usually do. At the school specifically, it’s become more socially acceptable to have a more conservative viewpoint or a more offensive viewpoint, not to say those are always the same thing. There’s a wide range between saying ‘I believe in a small government’ and making racist comments, but the rise to conservatism and the rise of bigotry have coincided.”

Parker Rockwell ’27 said students are more willing to share their political views than they were in the past, leading to the illusion of a rise in conservatism.

“The school, its faculty and the way it is run pushes back against conservatism and pushes a very progressive belief system,” Rockwell said. “A lot of people were more conservative, but they were not as open about it because of that, but that’s changed. People are more willing to make their stance on politics more public.”

Head of Upper School Beth Slattery said she has seen a shift towards liberalism as the school has become more diverse.

“[The school] has become more liberal.” Slattery said. “When I got here in 2005, the vast majority of people were coming from traditional sending schools. We had a larger population of white students, who tend to be more conservative than students of colors. We had fewer students on financial aid, and wealthier families tend to be more conservative. As we have seen a shift to becoming a more diverse school, I have not noticed a dramatic political shift.”

Conservative students are a part of a larger Gen Z shift towards conservatism. A panel of teenagers aged 13–17 years old found 14% of Gen Z teens say their views are “more conservative” than their parents’ views, compared with just 7% of millennials at the same age two decades ago, according to the Walton Family Foundation.

Aidan Elson ’27 said people are now challenging their parent’s political beliefs and there has been increased political discourse.

“People didn’t talk about politics as much when they were younger,” Elson said. “People are affected a lot more by their parents’ opinions when they’re younger, so it’s a lot harder for kids to have that initial momentum to actually talk about it. When you’re in seventh grade, what do you know? We’re in 11th grade, what do we still know? We’re still not living out in the real world, experiencing life. As we get older, we’re having more and more political discussions. I don’t think there’s been a necessary shift in demographic, but there definitely has been more of a willingness to engage in political discussions.”

Rockwell said he blames the school’s administration for the shift towards liberalism.

“The school administration is actually pushing towards conservatism because they’re pushing progressive ideas,” Rockwell said. “The younger generation likes to push back against control from the older generations and people who are superior to them. In our case, that would be the school administration. People want to rebel and not have to listen to these people, so pushing stronger progressive ideals has the opposite effect.”

Phillips said she blames unpopular messaging associated with liberalism for the shift to conservatism.

“[The shift] is not necessarily because of liberal views, but the things that feel pointless to the student body,” Phillips said. “[For example,] standing in a massive peace sign on the football field or sitting through some presentation about Trans Day of Remembrance. Things like that, which do not necessarily feel like they are having an active, tangible output in the community, lead people to feel like all SLIDE initiatives and initiatives to make the school more inclusive are useless.”

Slattery said the school attempts to remain as bipartisan as possible and chooses to comment selectively on political issues.

“We have tried to [remain bipartisan].” Slattery said. “We try to be a place where students can express their viewpoints, whatever that may be. There is a perception that we have taken a stance on things, but we do not feel we have taken a stance on things so we try not to get super involved. People get mad when we don’t put out a letter every time something happens in the world. Usually, it has to be something that a critical mass of people at the school have to be affected by.”

A private school education can double the chance of a person voting conservative, according to The Guardian. Rockwell said students tend to adopt the perspectives of teachers they respect and reject those of teachers they dislike.

“Teachers definitely have an impact on people’s beliefs,” Rockwell said. “If you have a good teacher who you find interesting, then you’re more likely to absorb their beliefs versus a teacher that you don’t like in general, who you’ll instinctively disagree with their politics.”

Elson said students are often unwilling to share their political beliefs in class because of fear of judgement from their teachers.

“Kids are a little bit intimidated by the political take a teacher has so much so that they are unwilling to oppose that in class,” Elson said.

“No matter what that might be, a lot of times, a one-minded political view will emerge in discussion in class because people want to stay aligned with what their teacher would be, whether that’s more democratic or conservative.”

Some students have seen a rise of prejudice as a sign of a rise in conservatism. Philips said said hate toward LGBTQ students and people of color has intensified, contrasting from inclusion felt previously.

“There’s definitely been a rise in racism and homophobia,” Phillips said. “Specifically, there’s an assumption that when a queer person walks into a room, they’re going to be a weird gay kid, whereas previously we were moving towards a more accepting worldview. But we moved very fast towards that around 2020, so that pushback and the swinging of the political pendulum was inevitable.”