It has come to the attention of our student body that this year our graduation gowns will no longer be maroon and white. This change was made to accommodate for less than 3% of the grade, who feel uncomfortable choosing which color to wear. In the past 50+ years it has been a tradition that females wear white, and males wear maroon. Those at our school who do not want to stand out by choosing a color, or take offense to the fact they have to identify what gender they are, have requested one color for the gowns. We as a grade feel this is extremely unfair to the majority for many reasons. The color of the graduation gowns has always been a choice, no student is pressured to wear white or maroon, they are able to wear the color they feel expresses their gender best. Simply if a student identifies as a male they chose to wear maroon, and if they identify as a female they chose to wear white. It is unfair that if one student takes offense to the color white, that 250 students are no longer able to wear traditional white. To put into perspective how arbitrary this administrative decision is, I will give a hypothetical situation. If a single student was uncomfortable that everyday they had to decide whether to dress to school in male or female clothing, and proceeded to involve school, Conestoga would then implement a uniform to make this person comfortable. It has been made clear to our student body that in the past two years, our school consistently values, and obliges to the minority. The feelings of most people suddenly do not matter, when one or two students take offense or feel things are unfair to them. We were brought to a forum on October 25th and told to voice our opinions, within minutes it became clear the administration already ruled out the color white, and was unwilling to listen to students. If the school truly cared what we thought they would have listed white on the ballet, and the number of people who wold vote for it I ensure would be overwhelming. Many families have their children wear the same graduation gown as their siblings out of tradition, because it is special to graduate in the same gown as the very people we looked up when we were growing up. In addition, it is an incredible inconvenience that regardless of whether we have a siblings graduation gown, we are being forced to buy another one.  We understand there are many complicated factors in this quandary, however, we hope to be respected enough that you would consider our side equally as much as the 1 or 2 students who want to change a 50 year old tradition. Please support us in our hopes to maintain the maroon and white graduation gowns.