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I found a petition on the potential ethnic discrimination/division of children by the national Ministry of Education.

The case describes a possible ethnic discrimination by the Ministry of Education in Moldova, where all the Moldovan children are "forced" by the Ministry to study the History of "Romanians", regardless the ethnicity of children (moldovan, jews, russian, ukranian, romanian, gagauz, etc): all should learn the history of the "romanians".

Wondering if there are such analogical legal cases in the Europe or in the World where the State was attacked based on the discrimination in the school object name.

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  • It would be interesting to know what part of the history of the "Romanians" is taught. A cursory examination of wikipedia suggests that at multiple times Romania and Moldova have had the same (usually external) governing structure, e.g. the Romans, the Ottomans, the Hungarians, the Poles, the Wallacheans (who I believe were Romanian themselves), the Russians and the Soviets. You may find "combined" or "separated" countries fertile study ground, as one factor is the combined administration of the two nations for large swaths of history.
    – sharur
    Commented Aug 10, 2020 at 20:06
  • there is not a historical question. This is a legal one. Imagine in UK all the children would learn the "History of Englishmen", or in Austria would learn the "History of Germans"...
    – serge
    Commented Aug 10, 2020 at 23:26

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There are many analogous cases throughout the world, but like the petition you cite, they are not legal, they are political, e.g. the Kautokeino rebellion, the Basque conflict, Turkish-only laws in Turkey, Bantu minorities in Somalia, Jim Crow laws in the US. A legal case would be when parties file a lawsuit in some higher court, to force a government to cease a policy of ethnically-based discrimination. There were a number of cases arising in the US, which centered around the policy of "separate but equal" which was found unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education.

On the political front, there has been a long standing debate over curricular matters, where not everybody's culture is given equal treatment in public school curricula. In order to successfully sue over the practice, there has to be an underlying legal basis, for example a law mandating that such-and-such be taught in the schools. Washington state law mandates teaching US history, and does not mandate teaching Chinese history, so a lawsuit over not teaching US history would succeed and one over not teaching Chinese history would fail. The courts would find that it is up to the legislature, or the local school board, to establish the rules regarding what is to be taught.

It may be that there are cases where a school district is sued because they aren't following the rules set by higher authorities. It is an absolute fact that schools do not teach the history and culture of all of the students in their classes.

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  • I would like to search in the legal field, not the political one. The definition of "discrimination" and "ethical segregation" could be used. Also notions like "forced assimilation", and the laws like the ECHR/Protocol 1/Art 2 (the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical conviction)
    – serge
    Commented Aug 10, 2020 at 23:19
  • the harder part is to demonstrate the fact of discrimination...
    – serge
    Commented Aug 10, 2020 at 23:20
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    The problem is relating this to enforceable law. But ECHR is probably the best way to narrow the search. The Belgian language case might be closest to what you're interested in.
    – user6726
    Commented Aug 11, 2020 at 0:31
  • is that the hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-57525 one? I don't see much parallels, the language problem is not in the Moldova case, maybe I am missing somethig?
    – serge
    Commented Aug 11, 2020 at 13:55
  • about the "US" or "Chinese" are different words. "Chinese" mean "nation", when "US" means "country". That is the difference if one would impose "Brits history" or "Americans history" over "US history"
    – serge
    Commented Sep 4, 2020 at 20:59

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