Yellow is the New Black
Administration skeptical on graduation robe color change
May 4, 2018
Formal robes for graduation at Oak Park High School used to be unified in the same black color. In the late ‘90s, however, administrators split the tradition by gender, giving girls the goldenrod colored robes and leaving boys with the customary black robes.
The fact that the previous all-black robes were made of low-quality materials affected the administration’s choice to transition toward two separate colors. Now that the binary graduation system is in place, coordinators are able to maintain a well-kept set of goldenrod and black robes with the high school’s insignia stitched upon them.
Principal Kevin Buchanan came to work at Oak Park High School much later, after the robe-color alteration under former principal Lynn McCormack’s leadership. Regardless, he said that he is more concerned with the visual aspect of graduation, not so much the student complaints about the “mustard yellow” appearance of the girls’ robes.
At the beginning of the 2017-18 school year, senior Maddy Quon started a petition on change.org that gained over 280 signatures to advocate for seniors choosing their graduating colors according to personal preference.
“A lot of people have commented that they agree with the fact that gender shouldn’t be stereotyped by the color robe you wear,” Quon said. “I just hope the administration listens to the popular demand.”
Buchanan said the school would face a fiscal toll if robe colors were to return back to all black, as the district would order 200 new black robes to replace the current 200 goldenrod ones.
“This isn’t about individuality, it’s about representing their class, the class of 2018,” Buchanan said.
To address other graduation concerns, administrators are now permitting cap decorations, which weren’t allowed in the past, and have altered the honor roll cords from yellow to braided yellow and black in order to contrast the goldenrod robes.
In some cases, high schools will split graduation down the middle by gender and color, placing girls on one side of the aisle in the lighter color and boys on the other side in the darker color. But in most cases where graduation rows include intermixed genders, girls tend to wear the lighter colors.
For example, Moorpark High School has girls wear the gold robes and boys wear green, and Walnut High School in Los Angeles has girls wear white and boys wear light blue. While Pacifica High School in the Oxnard Union High School District used to have girls wear a forest green and boys wear black, they recently changed their policy to have seniors wear forest green solely.
Loading ...Adolfo Camarillo High School, also included in Oxnard Union High School District’s movement for a graduation robe color-change, implemented unicolor robes to navy blue Nov. 14 after previously having girls wear a Columbia blue against the boys’ navy blue. The entire student body was given the chance to vote Nov. 8 on the district’s directive, which would determine whether or not this became a new board policy. Associated Student Body Director at Camarillo High, Lori Pristera, said that out of around 2,100 students who participated, the majority of them voted for navy blue robes.
“Our district’s position was that if one person is uncomfortable or three people are uncomfortable then that’s enough for everybody,” Pristera said. “There’s enough conflict going on in the world right now and there’s enough disparity and hatred directed towards so many of the ‘others’ in our society that we didn’t want to contribute to it.”
Pristera said she was called out by a Fox News commentator for the school’s backlash against the community’s conservativism.
“As a human being, I think that the world needs to understand that things are changing and while there’s controversy for change –– change always hurts for some and benefits others –– people should feel accepted for the community that they’re in. It’s everyone’s right to identify however they want,” Pristera said.
With faces like Emma Gonzalez making headway over the national issue of gun control, Pristera said that young students across the country are starting to retrieve voices that they didn’t have in earlier times.
“If you split them and say ‘you are this, you are that,’ that’s puts them into categories. Times are changing,” Pristera said. “Either we’re going to respect kids as young adults who have their own mind and their own feelings and emotions, or we’re just going to run over them like it was done ‘in the past.’”
Science department chair Winnie Litten shares similar sentiments with Pristera.
“The first thing you’re going to see when someone’s graduating is whether they’re male or female,” Litten said.
The class of 2013 graduates
Litten proposed that Oak Park administrators allow for a randomized system where students can choose both the color and size of their graduation robes, similar to the choice a transgender student may make per their personal orientation. Or, Litten suggested, they could all just wear black.
“It’s interesting in this day and age to have to be identified by one’s gender for one’s graduation gown because maybe that’s not the gender [they] ascribe to. You’re saying there are only two genders,” Litten said. “I think it’s the construct of society being reinforced once again.”
Despite high favor by students to change the graduation robe color system, the fiscal detriment to the school is still a great factor in this debate.
“This would have to involve the entire student body if we were to revisit the robes,” Buchanan said. “But, I think graduation is beautiful. The entire spectacle about how everyone looks in their black and gold robes is really pretty. When they’re arranged on the field and when they walk in, it’s stunning.”
Pristera said that a school district should reflect the opinion of all of the students, even if it means ending a long-standing tradition.
“We’re not the same as we were, and that’s OK,” Pristera said. “Change only happens when people come together and rise up if they see injustice.”