As groups of spirited students fill the school with a rainbow of color for Clash of the Classes day and cram into the gym in animated anticipation of the rally, I find my initial fears proved correct: I will never be able to accept yellow as my class color.

Under certain circumstances, adorning something with the third color in the rainbow adds vivacity – for instance, a bright yellow flower amidst a curtain of dark green underbrush. A school rally where innumerable students feel they must wear the color, however, is not one of those circumstances.

You see, yellow has an egotistical personality. It cries ‘look at me, look at me.’ And we look, alright, and then contort our faces at the putrid audacity of what we’ve just seen. When only a small amount of yellow is visible, we can refrain from complete contortion or even muster a smile. But when taken in large doses, such as – ahem – a school rally, yellow can be toxic.

I could forgive the decision to stick the freshman class with yellow if I knew that Student Government and whoever else has a say in the class color could not anticipate students’ antipathy towards it.

But unless everyone involved with the decision spent last year on Mars, I doubt this is the case. Only a year ago, the graduating class made it superbly clear that they were not fans of the color yellow. In fact, you could argue they down right hated it.

The class of 2016, like the class of 2020, walked into the school as naive freshmen, excited to start their first year of high school, only for their expressions to crash to the floor the instant they received the devastating news that their class color would forever be yellow. By the time they reached their senior year, they decided enough is enough and metaphorically kicked yellow to the curb in favor of donning white attire. The revolution managed to make itself quite well known, bringing out passion in people that both supported and condemned the boycott.

And yet, after that fiasco, yellow managed to boomerang back where it’s not wanted to haunt another class of students for the most insecure four years of their lives. While the other three classes form enchanting seas of blue, green and purple when they come together, the freshmen create a cringeworthy mesh where the few people that are daring enough the wear yellow and with, miraculously, some yellow garments in their closet attempt to make the best of a bad situation and give yellow a chance. Is this our future as a class? It seems rather bleak.

And that brings me to the most important question: why yellow? After having a class actually refuse to wear the color, you would think it would be off of the list of considerations for the next year, or maybe even earn its own special list of ‘never give any class ever again’ colors where it can be obnoxious all by itself. At the very least it should serve as the last possible resort. But how can it be a last resort when there is one, very available alternative: red?

Now, no current classes sport the color red, nor does it represent the school like orange or hold a societal association to any particular gender like pink. Plus, not only is it bright and colorful, but a primary color and the very first in the rainbow. And, most importantly, no one has outright rejected the color red in the past year. So, forgot why yellow. Why not red?

Maybe Student Government avoids giving a class that enters the school during an election year the color red to prevent any influence on people’s inclination towards certain political parties. Or maybe some people at this school secretly work for clothing companies and are waiting to give them feedback as to when yellow will start to sell again (the answer: never.) The amount of conspiracy theories that apply to this situation are limitless, and they all lack the same basic element – logic.

Until an answer comes as to why no one put red on the class color conveyor belt, or why anyone chose the notorious yellow, the conspiracy theories serve as the best form of entertainment. Well, that and exercising the right to never, for the next four years, don the color yellow.