Racism in the classroom is a self-fulfilling prophecy, a vicious cycle of reproduction of attitudes and behaviors. The Romani child, humiliated daily, made to feel inferior and unworthy, despairs and remains at home one day. We are told that Romani children start school less prepared to learn, less capable of sitting still, and that their command of the official language is poor. Equal access to education is a right. Therefore, no accompanying duties or obligations of those who have the right should be invoked.
Obligations fall on the state.
Equal education is a right exactly because its validity must be upheld, regardless of anything that the subjects of this right are or were, do or have done. Most Romani children in Europe will meet the 21st century in a de facto segregated educational system. In terms of funding, infrastructure, quality of teaching, even curriculum, segregated schools with over 80 percent of Romani enrollment are not simply worse than majority schools. Many prefer simply the comfort of their children being left out of a school system which humiliates, and many hope to build a separate educational system based on cultural specificity. The most outrageous form of denial of the educational rights of Roma is, ironically, typical of the comparatively successful new democracies, the Czech Republic and Hungary.