Irvington students ditch communist theme

You’re assigned the color red. Now think of a relevant theme. Communism?

That’s exactly what juniors at Irvington High School chose.

And that’s when peace crumbled faster than the Berlin Wall.

The class vote was part of the school’s Color Wars, to take place next month. A T-shirt was to feature a hammer and sickle on the front and “Isn’t it Time You Joined the Party” on the back.

If that phrase made you smile, it was meant to. The students were intending to be funny, even envisioning a party hat perched on the sickle.

If it didn’t, not everyone saw the humor.

“I just thought it was very inappropriate and offensive,” said 17-year-old Michael Schur, a senior whose relatives died in Ukraine under Stalin’s rule and whose mother complained to the principal.