Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-14138255-20140815002519/@comment-30764484-20140815075430

You guys are looking at Ruby's statement wrong. She wasn't saying that Yang was more special than anyone else, but that that's what's special about her. Just like Ruby's speed is what makes her special and Pyrrha's polarity is what makes her special. It was just another way of saying it's her semblance, since we (the audience) didn't know in what way Yang was special before (sort of).

Roman's comment about schools likely is partly because of the anti-Faunus attitude held by society overall, but I'm pretty sure he was mainly talking about the combat academies, the ones that train Hunters and Huntresses. It makes sense to group them in with governments and militaries.