Education Activists Urged To Go Orange
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Green was the color of the day yesterday – except for public-school parent coordinators, who were instructed to wear orange to encourage mothers and fathers to get involved in the Citywide Education Councils.
And that, according to some New Yorkers of Irish ancestry, is downright inappropriate given that yesterday was St. Patrick’s Day.
“If you’re wearing just orange, it stands for the union with Great Britain,” a teacher of 11 years, Paul Egan, said. “It’s really the opposite of St. Patrick, who’s the national saint of Ireland.”
For those New Yorkers who need a quick brush-up on their Irish history, the color orange in the Irish flag is associated with Northern Irish Protestants because of William of Orange, the King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, who toppled King James II, a Catholic, in 1688-89. The Protestants of Northern Ireland, sometimes called Orangemen, celebrate the battle each year. The green in the flag represents Irish Catholics and the republican cause, and is the national color of Ireland, while the white represents peace between the two sides.
The orange-versus-green dispute might stem from a battle in the 17th century, but when the Department of Education told the parent coordinators to “Dress in ‘orange’ for the next two weeks!” in a memo last week, some tensions flared.
A Brooklyn parent, Mellen O’Keefe, said, “I certainly know, as an Irish person, that wearing orange is anathema to the Irish because it represents the occupation by the British, even though it’s in their flag.”
Mr. Egan said the department should be more “sensitive” and should have learned its history before telling people what color to wear on St. Patrick’s Day.
“It just shows that these guys don’t think about anybody but themselves,” he said. “They’re not sensitive culturally or ethically to anybody else.”
A spokesman for the education department, Keith Kalb, said, “Nobody was forced to wear orange today. It was a friendly suggestion to parent coordinators in order to remind parents to get out the vote for the CEC elections.”
