Photo: Courtesy of Moscot.School administrators, for whatever reason, just love to ban things. From Silly Bandz and breast-cancer-awareness bracelets to nonsense words and even the dictionary, seemingly nothing is safe potentially distracting students from their studies.
Most often, it's fashion in the crosshairs. Witness the 4-year-old girl who was banned from taking a school photo because her father constructed an impressive bow out of her hair, and the sad case of Grayson Bruce, the proto-brony boy banned from wearing his My Little Pony backpack because, according to his school, it triggered bullying.
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Eyewear isn't safe, either. According to FailedMessiah, a blog that chronicles various aspects of the Orthodox community written by a former Hasidic Jew, several Brooklyn yeshivas have banned students from wearing thick-rimmed plastic frames while on school grounds.
One recent letter from the Pupa yeshiva in Williamsburg apparently cautions parents, stating: "Everyone understands very clearly that these types of glasses make the child look very common, crude," according to a translation from Yiddish by The New York Times. Another yeshiva called the glasses "too goyish" in a letter to parents last year.
It's not just the thick-rimmed style that's problematic, either. Another school suggested that it's best for students "to wear clear plastic frames," and that metal frames, rimless frames, and "frames that are colorful or have shapes" are all forbidden, according to FailedMessiah.
Call it restrictive, or maybe just a backlash against the overwhelming popularity of trendy styles in a neighborhood once dominated by Hasidim, who now somewhat begrudgingly share the area with young gentrifiers. Or maybe they just don't want their kids to look like hipster bandits. (NYT)