OSTRAVA, Czech Republic, June 23 (UPI) -- Czech school officials say Gypsies are discriminated against in the country's education system and it may take time to overcome the problem.
A group of Gypsies has filed a lawsuit against the government accusing it of segregation in schools in the Czech Republic.
Nikola Cervenakova, 17, is one of 18 Gypsy children to file the anti-discrimination suit, resembling the U.S. civil rights movement, the Los Angeles Times said.
In the communist era, Gypsies in Eastern Europe lived in poverty with no political say. Even after the fall of communism in 1989 Gypsies in the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Hungary and the former Yugoslavia have failed to make progress in advancing in the education systems.
Gypsy children do not go to kindergartens and very few of them complete primary or high school.
Romanies, as European authorities tend to call them these days, are often placed in classes for children with learning problems.
Dimitrina Petrova, executive director of the European Romany Rights Center, which filed the Czech anti-discrimination lawsuit, said, "These discrimination cases are modeled after the American experience," the Times reported.
Petrova's organization is studying how the blacks in America used U.S. courts to promote social changes and equal access to schools.
