In an attempt to be inclusive to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students, New Rochelle High School is moving away from assigning seniors gender specific graduation robes.
In a letter sent home to parents of graduating seniors, NRHS Principal Reginald Richardson explained that the adoption of a single color cap and gown would provide a more comfortable experience for some students. He said the change would “create an atmosphere that allows all of our students to enjoy the capstone event of their high school career equally, without the anxiety or fear that gender-specific colors might cause.”
This June, students will be able to choose which color gown to wear, and all gowns will be solid purple when the class of 2017 crosses the stage.
According to Richardson and some high school students, the traditional assignment of white robes for girls and purple for boys was making some students uncomfortable.
But this is not a change all are in favor of.
During a recent New Rochelle Board of Education meeting, more than a dozen New Rochelle High School graduates ranging in age from 18 to 80 stepped up to the podium one by one to passionately denounce the change.
While some parents simply objected to New Rochelle High School ending a long-standing tradition in making the switch to all-purple graduation robes, other parents were unhappy with the motivation behind the change being made.
“A man is a man and a woman is a woman,” Mark McLean, a New Rochelle High School alum, pronounced at the end of his remarks.
New Rochelle resident Pearl Quarles spoke out against the change in defense of the purple and white tradition. “I remember the sea of purple and white robes on graduation day,” she recalled. “It was a sight to see.”
As of press time, a Change.org petition had received 697 signatures. The petition supports “the saving of the traditional attire, of purple and white gowns for the New Rochelle High School Graduation.”
But Roland Rogers, president of the PTA Council, an organization that acts as a liaison between the individual school parent groups and the Board of Education, was surprised by the strident reactions of those opposed to the change.
In this instance, Rogers was speaking only on behalf of himself and his daughter Sophia, a junior who will wear purple at her 2017 graduation.
“I was shaking my head,” Rogers said. “The point of a single color is to unify students, to demonstrate that all students that attain the same degree join their classmates on an equal footing on graduation day.”
