REPORT ON ROMA EDUCATION TODAY: FROM SLAVERY TO SEGREGATION AND BEYOND

For much of their histories, the Roma in Eastern Europe and African Americans traversed similar paths. Both endured centuries of slavery and were emancipated, almost simultaneously, during the mid-nineteenth century. Both continued to suffer years of discrimination, poverty, inferior housing, defici...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Columbia law review 2010-05, Vol.110 (4), p.919-1001
Main Author: Greenberg, Jack
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Access to education
Children
Civil rights movements
College admission
Desegregation
European Union
Law schools
Political integration
Preschool education
Residential segregation
Rom
School desegregation
School segregation
Segregation
Slavery
Social exclusion
Social inequality
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Summary:For much of their histories, the Roma in Eastern Europe and African Americans traversed similar paths. Both endured centuries of slavery and were emancipated, almost simultaneously, during the mid-nineteenth century. Both continued to suffer years of discrimination, poverty, inferior housing, deficient health, and segregated education. During World War II, however, their paths forked. Perhaps 1,500,000 Roma were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators during the Holocaust. While the post-war period in the United States brought with it the civil rights movement and legal victories striking down segregation, in Eastern Europe the Roma came under Soviet domination. Roma got jobs, apartments, and welfare, but were not equipped to function in modern economies. After the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the Roma remained at the depths of Eastern European societies. Roma education, essential for climbing out of that abyss, has remained segregated and inferior. Because I was one of the lawyers who argued Brown v. Board of Education and, as head of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, litigated many school desegregation cases, in 2003 Roma leaders, beginning their own legal campaign to desegregate schools, invited me to Eastern Europe. Since then I have worked to uncover the reality of school segregation in the region. The European Union and national governments have passed laws prohibiting segregation and offered subsidies to promote desegregation. The European Court of Human Rights and national courts have entered a few judgments holding that schools have been illegally segregated. However, no European or national judicial or administrative organ has ordered the cessation of segregation in any school, nor have they addressed the principal means of evasion, white flight. Instead, they have left corrective action to uncoordinated, unconstrained municipalities. Not only is European and national government initiative lacking, there is no Roma civil rights movement. But there is ground for hope. I encountered schools—and even districts—that were taking initial steps to end segregation. A few government initiatives have been designed to encourage further integration. Young, bright Roma aspirants to public office have ventured into politics. In some communities where desegregation has begun, Roma applications to integrated schools outstrip available spots. Foundations, the European community, other nations, and economic necessity exert pressure in the right direction. Success s
ISSN:0010-1958