“Speak German or Sweep the Schoolyard”: Linguistic Human Rights in Germany

Abstract

A BERLIN school has unwittingly put itself at the center of an ongoing controversy in Germany about language policy.1 The Hoover School in troduced a German-only rule, not only in the classroom but also for class trips and breaks in the school day. Germany's minister for migration issues, Maria Bohmer, quickly endorsed the policy for other schools, saying that "language is the key to integration."2 Germany's largest immigrant group is Turkish (Berlin is famously, in terms of population, the second largest Turkish city after Istanbul)3 and representatives of the Turkish community did not waste any time in con demning the policy as racist, counterproductive, and ultimately futile. The Federation of Turkish Parents in Germany sharply criticized the forbidding of any language, and a Turkish member of the Green Party, Representative Ozcan Mutlu, spoke of "a break with the constitution" (Kiipper 5). To many, the school's German-only policy smacked of cultural impe rialism, yet the policy became harder to criticize as new details emerged. Over ninety percent of the Hoover School's pupils have a migrant back ground, and classrooms often serve native speakers of up to ten different languages. Furthermore, a committee composed of the administration,