Award-Winning ACT Principal Forced Out After 34 Years For Refusing To Promote Wear It Purple Day
After three decades of glowing performance reviews, principal Janelle Rowe's career was over within months of objecting to Wear It Purple Day at her ACT primary school. This is what the campaign behind that day is now costing Australia's classrooms.
Thirty-Four Years Of “Outstanding” Work, Undone In Months
Janelle Rowe spent 34 years in Australian classrooms, the last stretch of them as a principal whose own employment file, obtained under Freedom of Information laws by her lawyer John Steenhof, described her performance in the warmest terms an educational institution can give. Then she objected to hosting Wear It Purple Day at her school, and proposed running Bullying No Way Week instead, a program that addresses bullying, instead of one that asks staff to explain details of adult sexuality and gender identity to young children.
Within weeks, Rowe says she was summoned to the Education Directorate's head office and confronted with a list of alleged workplace failings. She was placed under supervision and, according to her legal team, directed to speak positively about the day and dress for the occasion. She eventually resigned. Steenhof, who represented her, put it plainly: “I would argue it was never about underperformance.” The ACT Education Directorate has declined to answer questions about Rowe or its position on the event.
Why A Veteran Educator Said No
Rowe's objection was not to stopping bullying. It was about what Wear It Purple Day asks staff to teach a room full of four-to-twelve-year-olds. Staff conduct codes already tell teachers not to raise sexual content with students, and Rowe's argument was that explaining what the letters in “LGBTQIA+” stand for, and what those identities mean, is exactly that content.
She described Wear It Purple Day as “just the wrong fit for young children in infants and primary classes.” Her position was that conversations about sexuality and gender belong with families, not with a primary school teacher.
Asked directly whether the Directorate had, in effect, demanded she publicly endorse something she conscientiously objected to, her answer was one word: “Yes.”
Also read: SUCCESS: Schools Are Stopping Wear It Purple Day
A “Harmless Dress-Up Day” That Has Already Cost People Their Jobs
Wear It Purple Day is marketed as a bit of colour and some cupcakes. But it has not behaved that way in practice. Family in Danger has previously reported that a similar purple-themed day in the Netherlands ended with a staff member being sacked for declining to take part. Now Australia has its own casualty, except this time it's not a junior staffer, it's a principal with 34 years of unblemished service.
That is not a coincidence. An initiative that requires this much institutional muscle to enforce was never just a dress-up day. It is a compliance test, and Janelle Rowe is what happens to educators who fail it.
The Campaign Behind The Colour
Wear It Purple doesn't operate alone. As we've documented, the organisation works alongside groups pushing Gender Sexuality Alliance (GSA) clubs into schools — clubs whose own materials instruct students and staff not to discuss a child's attendance, gender identity or sexuality with the student’s own families. An organisation that determined to keep parents out of the loop is not going to tolerate a principal who insists on age-appropriate limits, which is exactly what Rowe's case shows.
We were also the first to report that the Wear It Purple organisation has knowingly exposed minors to adult sexual content during their Wear It Purple Gala, where organisers gave minors free tickets and arranged free transportation to a Gala event that featured striptease performances.
Family in Danger responded to Wear It Purple this year by writing about our concerns regarding the day to every school in Victoria and New South Wales, with the help of our generous donors. We received some great responses, including from a principal who said that they were going to update their school policy to stop Wear It Purple day being hosted there in the future.
What You Can Do Now
Janelle Rowe's 34-year career is over. But the campaign that cost her that career is still running in schools across the country, and it will keep costing good educators their jobs until enough parents tell their state and territory governments to stop allowing it.
We already have a petition calling on Australia's Education Ministers to prohibit Wear It Purple Day and end government support for Gender Sexuality Alliance clubs in schools. Sign it here and share this story — the next principal to say no deserves better than what Janelle Rowe got.