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110 Colum. L. Rev. 919 (2010)
Report on Roma Education Today: From Slavery to Segregation and Beyond

handle is hein.journals/clr110 and id is 945 raw text is: COLUMBIA LAW REVIEW VOL. 110 MAY 2010 NO. 4 ARTICLES REPORT ON ROMA EDUCATION TODAY: FROM SLAVERY TO SEGREGATION AND BEYOND Jack Greenberg* 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 cen- tury. Both continued to suffer years of discrimination, poverty, inferior hous- ing, deficient health, and segregated education. During World War II, how- ever, their paths forked. Perhaps 1,500,000 Roma were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators during the Holocaust. While the post-war pe- riod 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 cessa- tion of segregation in any school, nor have they addressed the principal * Alphonse Fletcher, Jr. Professor of Law, Columbia University, A.B. 1945, LL.B. 1948, LL.D. 1984, Columbia University. I am grateful to judit Szira, my guide on a journey through the complexities of Roma education, which has been not less arduous, but more agreeable than the voyage of Dante Alighieri, Inferno, Canto 11, 139-42 (Allen Mandelbaum trans., University of California Press 1980) (n.d.). I am also grateful for advice to my colleague Henry P. Monaghan, students Andrew Brantingham, Mary Kate Johnson, Ryan Keats, Kyle Kolb, Minsun Lee, Jennifer Sokoler, and Christopher Wlach (who provided extraordinary assistance), and friends Gwendolyn Albert, Christian Bodewig, Leslie Hawke, Lilla Farkas, Boyan Konstantinov, Magda Matache, Marian Mandache, Rumyan Russinov, Andras UjlAky, Tudor Velea, and Perry Zizzi. Jessica Greenberg diligently took detailed notes of scores of interviews. Adam Carlis gave invaluable editorial support. Open Society Institute paid the expenses of my travel. 919

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