Except, it kinda is. Not everything a school says isn't allowed has to be some attempt to censor the child/ren.
Then why forbid it? It harms literally no one. It doesn't break dress code, it's not obscene or explicit, it doesn't have gang signs or anything like that. It's a shirt with cartoon characters on it. How is it any different than, say, a TMNT shirt?
Possibly because of the bad publicity bronies have. It's entirely possible that someone on the school board saw (Or is part of) what happens in the darker parts of the fandom and said 'Hm, do I want a possible source of our children having pornographic images of pastel coloured ponies from a report? Best be safe.' and said no. So it's entirely reasonable. Bad publicity for us = bad publicity for schools sometimes too. I know that happened to a kid's report of the holocaust; he went too in depth and they had to ban it from being reported on. He did 9/11 instead, which was arguably more detailed. But that's not really the point. It's a lot more complicated than just saying 'Yes or no'. No school just bashes something for no reason unless it's Gay Rights and standing for the Pledges.
Everything ever has porn of it, so I fail to see what makes ponies special in that regard. Might as well ban Sonic the Hedgehog shirts because the Sonic fandom is also known for rampant r34.
But nobody is doing a report on Sonic and trying to garner interest for it, not to mention it's a game series; something that people actively enjoy and play every day, with /good/ media coverage. Bronies are a minority, and one that has had pretty much nothing but bad publicity from media, and that's all the schools care about.
And? That's not the only reason, certainly. If it were, parents would be having a field day with this. I don't mean to go all conspiracy nut on you guys, but really. No school, without heavy convincing, is going to let you do a report on pastel coloured ponies and bronies. Not with the bad publicity from parents and students alike there. We already have half the internet thinking that Bronies are nothing more than people who... well, you know. To horses. What's next? Soccer moms who think that they're letting schools spread 'gay messages' without permission? (It's happened before.) It's a lot more than just the bullying aspect; the school districts never do things for so simple a reason. Writing can't hurt, but I doubt it'll work.
It may be speculation, but it's still a very, very valid possibility, and one you can't just dismiss as baseless conjecture, unless you don't understand just how fragile a school's reputation is. If bullying is there, they get less money; if parents complain, they get less money; if students complain, they get less money; less money equals less pay for teachers and not enough money for updated books, and less pay for teachers equals inept students. It seems small, but in the grand scheme of things, it could get out of hand very fast.
I see the source of your concern and would like to say that if Yami and the OP have some personal ethical reason(s) for supporting the act of complaining to the people in charge of the school in question, their desire to do so should not be brought low by concerns of how this or that might make the school appear to others. Whether or not the school ignores the complaints (and what their reasoning for doing so might be) should be irrelevant to the OP. He should make a decision based on what his beliefs are, not what sort of opposition he will face or what his opposition's reasons are. Oh, that's actually a pretty good point by itself, but I still think we should acknowledge the possibilities set before us. I see it as both. It really depends on your point of view.
I agree. I was stating it from the possibility of the situation as to why they declined it; I agree that some form of action should be taken, but dismissing it as a 'stupid reason' where there are possible serious reasons for the school is unfair to both parties.
I think we might be getting ahead of ourselves. It's true that sometimes situations like these feel like a lose-lose. What can the school do if they'll only be vilified for their course of action, no matter what that may be? It would appear that, in that case, upholding one teacher's decision would be easiest: doing nothing usually is. But we've gotten off track. If we can, I'd like to review what ndogmario said in his second-to-last statement. Ignoring some of the more controversial and arguable statements made here, I'd like to talk about what is definitely true and use those bolded statements to cite my claims. Point the first: ndogmario appears to have been pressured by teachers to the point where he was uncomfortable. That they said they "wouldn't let him embarrass himself" appears to equate to "you should be embarrassed for what you like." I believe that statement constitutes as verbal abuse. Point the second: ndogmario's grade appears to have been altered based on his mentioning of the word "pony." If ponies have been banned, he should be punished for the offense, but not through his grades. It would have been more appropriate for the teachers to assign him an alternative topic and grade him based on his presentation of it. A detention (or suspension) would have been more fitting. In conclusion: The verbal abuse of children by teachers should never be tolerated. The same goes for unfair grading to the point of failing assignments based on the teacher's opinion of the subject material. Regardless of whether or not ponies stay banned (I beg of you, is that really where our focus should be?) that particular aspect of this problem must be addressed. It doesn't appear to be a mind-bogglingly large issue at this moment, but it shouldn't be allowed to grow into one, either. I don't believe those reasons are stupid.
Oh, well, thank you. I appreciate it; I had avoided posting some more nitty-gritty stuff here for a while because I wasn't sure how to present those ideas.
I don't really mind when other people come across as a little bit confrontational. Using my posts in this thread as an example, I think that a user can mean well while still stating their opinion in a direct manner. A lot of people tend to get confrontational or even violent, sometimes even without arguing their point, and the fact that multiple users in this thread have been able to argue without going for each others' throats is a nice thing. It wasn't my intention to ignore your points, but rather to supplement them. They were good ones, after all.
You should start a petition. It probably wouldn't work, but it is worth a try. (I have a brony wristband that I wear everyday so I'd be mad too.)
