BIDDEFORD, Maine (WGME) — Friday is graduation night at Biddeford High School, but some students may look a little different on stage.

This year, the school is limiting the use of cords to represent student club participation, a change that has drawn pushback from the Black Student Union.

“This represents not just our dedication to the club but our skin color — who we are, our identity,” said Anne Mathiang, president of Biddeford High School’s Black Student Union.

Mathiang helped establish the group and now serves as its president. She and 11 other graduating seniors in the Black and Multicultural Student Unions had planned to wear red, black, yellow, and green cords during the ceremony.

But school officials told them that cords were no longer allowed for clubs.

“There’s a difference between this and other clubs,” Mathiang said. “You obviously don’t see chess club members getting discriminated [against] at all for their skin — about something they can’t control.”

Biddeford Schools Superintendent Jeremy Ray said the school’s graduation committee announced the policy change in October.

He says all student clubs were told they could wear pins instead of cords so the administration had better oversight of graduation regalia. There are only four groups that can wear cords: service organizations, the Thespian Society, the National Technical Honor Society, and the Olympia Snowe Women’s Leadership Institute.

“With so many different symbols and signs meaning different things to different groups, the approved pins allow for some oversight and review of each pin, as we would be challenged to provide the same oversight for all organizations if each had different regalia,” Ray wrote in a letter to the community.

Biddeford Mayor Marty Grohman, who works with BSU students on the city’s Juneteenth events, argued that the BSU should be considered a service organization more than a club. He says he’s looking into reinstating the cords for next year.

“I think the core of it is probably a misunderstanding, but it’s also about the growth, the incredible and amazing growth of our Black Student Union that we’re really proud of,” Grohman said.

Despite the policy change, Mathiang says she’s not standing down.

“If they take this away from me when I’m walking the stage, I’m just not going to walk,” she said.

Ray told CBS13 that no student will be stopped from walking across the stage if they wear the BSU cord.