Roma Deportation in France Condemned by Top U.S. Civil Rights Experts

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Roma Deportation in France Condemned by Top U.S. Civil Rights Experts

 

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New York, Aug. 19, 2010—Columbia Law School Professor Theodore Shaw, the former executive director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, condemned Thursday the deportation by France of hundreds of Roma, the so-called gypsies.
 
Shaw, one of the leading civil rights experts in the U.S., co-teaches a course with Jack Greenberg, the Alphonse Fletcher Jr. Professor of Law, which compares the struggle to integrate schools in the U.S. with school discrimination faced in Europe by the Roma.
 
Greenberg, a civil rights icon who, with Thurgood Marshall, argued Brown vs. Board of Education before the U.S. Supreme Court, said "discrimination against Roma today is worse  than Jim Crow oppression of African-Americans  was in the United States before the civil rights revolution of the 60s."
 
Greenberg, who wrote about the plight of the Roma in the May issue of the Columbia Law Review, said the conditions awaiting those deported were nothing short of miserable, with "widespread school segregation; unemployment  approaching 100 percent in some places; miserable housing, often with no doors, windows, and plumbing;  and neo-Nazi violence."
 
"The European Union and many national governments have decried these conditions and some have set up programs to ameliorate Roma conditions.  There has been scattered progress.," Greenberg said. "But enforcement is near non-existent in the face of intense anti-Roma  prejudice."
 
Shaw offered these observations on the move by France to deport at least 700 Roma to Bulgaria and Romania.
 
“While many nations are concerned about immigration and illegal immigrants, this reaction is targeted at a particular group and it raises echoes of a long history of discrimination.”
 
“Violence against Roma is already all-too-commonplace, particularly in eastern European countries. Could this exacerbate the problem? Sure.”
 
“If the government is targeting Roma, then others who are already engaged in xenophobia and hatred are going to feel more empowered.”
 
“France does have laws requiring permits, but this is focused on a particular group. It isn’t a general crackdown on people who don’t have permits. Immediately, I think red flags ought to go up. People should see this as dangerous in its implications.”
 
Regarding a possible European Union response:
 
“My guess is that in today’s climate, with everything else that is going on, I think there’s a legitimate concern that there may not be an appropriate response.”
 
What about the argument that many of those deported will make their way back?
 
“This plays on all kinds of stereotypes about Roma, who they are, whether they are desirable or not. Whether they come back doesn’t mitigate what is going on.”
 
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