The School I Deserve
Six Young Refugees and Their Fight for Equality in America
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Uncovers the key civil rights battle that immigrant children fought alongside the ACLU to ensure equal access to education within a xenophobic nation
Journalist Jo Napolitano delves into the landmark case in which the School District of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was sued for refusing to admit older, non-English speaking refugees and sending them to a high-discipline alternative school. In a legal battle that mirrors that of the Little Rock Nine and Brown v. Board of Education, 6 brave refugee students fought alongside the ACLU and Education Law Center to demand equal access. The School I Deserve illuminates the lack of support immigrant and refugee children face in our public school system and presents a hopeful future where all children can receive an equal education regardless of race, ethnicity, or their country of origin.
One of the students, Khadidja Issa, fled the horrific violence in war-torn Sudan with the hope of a safer life in the United States, where she could enroll in school and eventually become a nurse. Instead, she was turned away by the School District of Lancaster before she was eventually enrolled in one of its alternative schools, a campus run by a for-profit company facing multiple abuse allegations. Napolitano follows Khadidja as she joins the lawsuit as a plaintiff in the Issa v. School District of Lancaster case, a legal battle that took place right before Donald Trump’s presidential election, when immigrants and refugees were maligned on a national stage. The fiery week-long showdown between the ACLU and the school district was ultimately decided by a conservative judge who issued a shocking ruling with historic implications. The School I Deserve brings to light this crucial and underreported case, which paved the way to equal access to education for countless immigrants and refugees to come.
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Journalist Napolitano debuts with a comprehensive look at a 2016 lawsuit filed by six refugee students against their Lancaster, Pa., school district for discrimination. Denied entry into the district's main high school and placed in a "high-discipline ‘alternative' school" run by a private company, the students, all age 17 or older, received insufficient ESL instruction and endured intimidating security measures. Napolitano details how the plaintiffs escaped the traumatic circumstances of their birth countries, including Sudan and Somalia, only to encounter a rising tide of anti-Muslim rhetoric as President Trump took office, and recounts courtroom testimony from school administrators, teachers, and resettlement workers that reveals the tension between the district's focus on graduation rates and the students' desire to learn. The federal court's decision in favor of the students, according to Napolitano, was both a surprise, given that the judge was a "self-described conservative who abhorred government overreach," and a triumph of "fairness, equity, and the promise of newly adopted country." Laden with compassion and detailed insights into the practices that threaten equal access to education, this is an eye-opening account of a precedent-setting case.
