Lawsuits Filed by Roma Challenge Racial Segregation in Czech Schools

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Subject: Lawsuits Filed by Roma Challenge Racial Segregation in Czech Schools

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Lawsuits Filed by Roma Challenge Racial Segregation in Czech
Schools


European Roma Rights Center Press Statement:
 
Lawsuits Filed by Roma Challenge Racial Segregation in Czech Schools
 
June 15, 1999
 
Today, June 15, 1999, a group of Romani children in the Czech city of
Ostrava, assisted by local counsel and the European Roma Rights Center
(ERRC), have filed legal complaints in Czech courts to challenge their
segregation in special schools for the mentally deficient. The
lawsuits are filed simultaneously with the publication by ERRC in both
English and Czech of the Country Report A Special Remedy: Roma and
Schools for the Mentally Handicapped in the Czech Republic.
 
The lawsuits, filed with the Czech Constitutional Court and the
Ostrava School Bureau, charge the Czech Ministry of Education and
local school authorities with segregating the plaintiffs and numerous
other Romani children into special schools for the mentally deficient
because they are Roma. The result has been a denial of equal
educational opportunity for most Romani children. The complaints
demand a judicial finding of racial segregation, the establishment of
a compensatory educational fund, and the development and adoption of a
plan to achieve racial balance in Ostrava schools within three years.
Racial segregation and discrimination in education violate the
Constitution of the Czech Republic, the Czech Charter of Fundamental
Rights and Freedoms, other provisions of domestic law, and numerous
binding international treaties including the European Convention on
Human Rights.
 
The evidence documented in the legal complaints shows that, in the
district of Ostrava, Romani children outnumber non-Roma in special
schools by a proportion of more than twenty-seven to one. Although
Roma represent fewer than 5% of all primary school-age students in
Ostrava, they constitute 50% of the special school population.
Nationwide, as the Czech government itself concedes, approximately 75%
of Romani children attend special schools, and more than half of all
special school students are Roma. This extraordinary racial disparity
constitutes what a United Nations committee of experts has condemned
as "de facto racial segregation" in the field of education, which is
inconsistent with the government�s obligations under international
law.
 
As a result of their segregation in dead-end schools for the
"retarded," the plaintiffs, like many other Romani children in Ostrava
and around the nation, have suffered severe educational, psychological
and emotional harm, including the following:
- they have been subjected to a curriculum far inferior to that in
basic schools;
- they have been effectively denied the opportunity of ever returning
to basic school;
- they have been prohibited by law and practice from entrance to
non-vocational secondary educational institutions, with attendant
damage to their opportunities to secure adequate employment;
- they have been stigmatised as "stupid" or "retarded" with effects
that will brand them for life, including diminished self-esteem and
feelings of humiliation, alienation and lack of self-worth;
- they have been forced to study in racially segregated classrooms and
hence denied the benefits of a multi-cultural educational environment.
 
Race-neutral factors fail adequately to explain this gross racial
disparity. Thus, few openly maintain the fiction that Roma, as a race,
are genetically less intelligent. Those who do are confronted with a
virtual consensus among government officials and acknowledged experts
that many Roma assigned to special schools are not, in fact, mentally
deficient. In addition, evidence that will be produced by the
plaintiffs demonstrates that the evaluation mechanisms employed to
assess "intelligence" are flawed and unreliable:
 
- Many of the tests have been selected, and their results continue to
be used, even though they have previously been shown to generate
racially-disproportionate effects;
- Few, if any, Roma were consulted in the selection or design of the
most commonly used tests;
- None of these tests have ever been validated for the purpose of
assessing Romani children in the Czech Republic;
- In administering tests to these and other Romani children,
insufficient care has been taken to account for, and overcome
predictable cultural, linguistic and/or other obstacles which often
negatively influence the validity of "intelligence" assessments;
- No guidelines effectively circumscribe individual discretion in the
administration of tests and the interpretation of results, leaving the
assessment process vulnerable to influence by racial prejudice,
cultural insensitivity and other irrelevant factors;
- In practice, notwithstanding these flaws, educational evaluators and
psychologists place undue weight on test results in making placement
recommendations;
- In violation of government regulations, once assigned to special
schools, the plaintiffs, like most other Romani children, have not
been adequately monitored to ensure the continuing suitability of
their placement; hence, all the errors inherent in the initial testing
and assignment procedure have been compounded and rendered permanent;
- The notion of "inherent inferiority" is belied by the non-existence
of a comparable statistical discrepancy along racial lines in
specialized schools for the more severely disabled, where
manifestations of disability are more objectively verifiable and less
subject to influence by racial prejudice.
 
Nor are other attempts to explain away racial segregation more
persuasive. Language problems are not an excuse. Their solution is
language training � not labeling a child "retarded."

And too, the generally lower socio-economic status of Roma does not by
itself explain the statistical disparity in special schools. Many poor
ethnic Czech children study and excel in basic schools. Moreover, any
allegedly greater risk of mental or physical disease among Roma due to
malnutrition and/or inadequate medical care would not explain why Roma
are not similarly overrepresented in schools for the physically
disabled.
 
Finally, parental consent is a red herring. First, in Ostrava, as in
other parts of the Czech Republic, numerous parents, including parents
of some of the plaintiffs, have not been adequately informed of
numerous facts of great significance, including the following:
- that they have a right not to consent to placement in special
schools;
- that, once given, for all practical purposes, parental consent may
not be withdrawn;
- that, in practice, assignments to special school in Ostrava are
permanent and irrevocable;
- that graduates of special schools are effectively prohibited by law
and practice from entrance to non-vocational secondary educational
institutions, with attendant damage to their opportunities to secure
adequate employment.
 
Indeed, Romani parents, like Czech society as a whole, are all too
often mystified and overwhelmed by intelligence test results and
evaluations by educational "experts". Parents often receive evaluation
reports only at the very meeting with officials where their consent is
sought � thus giving them little or no opportunity to review and
assess the findings � and the reports are frequently communicated
summarily, and/or in professional jargon which is unintelligible to
the layperson.
 
Finally, a number of Romani parents, including parents of some of the
plaintiffs, have consented to their children�s placement in special
schools out of reasonable fear of racial hostility against Roma in
basic schools. The legal complaints contain substantial evidence which
demonstrates that Romani children in Ostrava basic schools routinely
encounter racially-offensive speech, racial exclusion (being forced to
sit in the back of the class), and threats of racial violence on the
part of teachers, administrators and non-Roma students. The evidence
produced will include a letter from the police confirming a recent
bomb threat at a basic school in Ostrava which demanded that all
Romani children leave the school.
 
Given the crucial nature of the decision at issue, and the permanence
of school assignments in practice, blaming the parents for consenting
amounts to little more than a post hoc justification for an admittedly
discriminatory policy.
 
The facts concerning the overrepresentation of Romani children in
special schools have long been known. Nor does the present government
vigorously dispute them. Indeed, a number of reform proposals are now
under consideration in various government circles to address what is
widely perceived to be a problem. To date, however, racial
discrimination and segregation persist unchanged. Notwithstanding any
current talk of reform, since well before 1989, Czech school
authorities have knowingly assigned Romani children to special schools
in disproportionate numbers. Thus, as far back as 1984, according to
government statistics, half of all Romani students were attending
special school. The government�s maintenance in force over many years
of a policy generating massively discriminatory effects evidences, at
a minimum, a willingness to tolerate the wholesale denial of
educational opportunity to generation after generation of Romani
children. The plaintiffs bringing these lawsuits are no longer willing
to pay this price.
 
Accordingly, the legal complaints filed today seek, cumulatively, the
following remedies:
 
1. a judicial finding that the plaintiffs have been the victims of
racial discrimination and segregation in violation of Czech and
international law;
2. a judicial finding that the plaintiffs have been denied their right
to an education;
3. a judicial finding that the plaintiffs have not been provided with
adequate reasons as to why they were placed in special school;
4. a request that the judicial authorities:
 
(a) order the Czech Ministry of Education and Ostrava school
authorities to establish a compensatory education fund to pay for the
extra education and training required to compensate the plaintiffs �
and other children similarly situated -- for the damage caused them,
and to enable the plaintiffs to compete adequately for entrance to
non-vocational secondary education, i.e., to place them in the
position they would have been in had they not been subjected to racial
segregation, discriminated against in access to education, and denied
rights to education and due process; and
(b) order the Czech Ministry of Education and Ostrava school
authorities to end racial segregation and discrimination in Ostrava
schools within three years and to develop an educational reform plan,
with a timetable demonstrating progress at successive stages in the
interim, capable of achieving racial balance in Ostrava schools within
that time. Components of the educational reform plan should include,
at a minimum, the following:
 
- anti-racism training for all school teachers and administrators in
Ostrava;
- promulgation of guidelines to ensure that assessments of educational
ability are not influenced by racial prejudice;
- requirement that parental consent to student placements be given in
writing and only after parents have been adequately informed of their
rights and of the consequences of consent;
- in the event intelligence tests continue to be used as part of an
assessment procedure for school entrance, the Ministry of Education
and local school authorities will, with the assistance of appropriate
expertise, develop evaluation mechanisms properly normed and
standardised for use with Roma in the Czech Republic;
- pre-school, non-segregated classes offered free of charge to all;
- development of educational mechanisms to ensure that students whose
first language is other than Czech are not discriminated against in
access to basic education;
- systematic monitoring of the suitability of special school
assignments;
- reorientation of special school curricula to provide for
mainstreaming of most students into basic schools.
 
Failure to secure effective remedies in domestic courts will result in
an application to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
 
For further information, please contact:
 
James Goldston, Budapest
Tel. (361) 428-2351 or 428-2352; email: [email protected]
 
Markus Pape, Prague
Tel. (4202) 692-7414 or (4202) 5732-7871; email: [email protected]
 
  * * * * *
 
The European Roma Rights Center (ERRC) is an international public
interest law organisation which monitors the rights of Roma and
provides legal defence in cases of human rights abuse. For more
information about ERRC, visit the ERRC on the web at http://errc.org.
 
European Roma Rights Center
H-1525 Budapest 114
PO Box 10/24
Hungary
Telephone: (361) 428-2351
Fax: (361) 428-2356

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