Over Spring Break in early March 2014, IHRC students Zachary Rotstein, Tess Mullin, and Alexandra Logue travelled to San Juan, Puerto Rico with IHRC Director Francisco J. Rivera Juaristi and supervising attorney Britton Schwartz to investigate the state of special education in Puerto Rico. As part of the Clinic’s initial exploration of potential recourse before regional or international human rights mechanisms for children with disabilities in Puerto Rico, they interviewed victims, experts, and officials and increased contacts with local partners, attorneys, and organizations, including the Human Rights Clinic of the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico.
The students confirmed that lack of access to special education and related services is a serious, chronic problem in Puerto Rico. For decades, hundreds of thousands of children with special needs have not received the services that Puerto Rican, federal, and international law require the government to provide. The Puerto Rican constitution explicitly guarantees everyone the right to education; strong federal statutes including the Americans with Disabilities Act and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act clearly establish requisite standards for equal access to education by children with disabilities; international and regional treaties to which the United States is a party guarantee equal protection and freedom from discrimination on the basis of disability; and the Puerto Rican courts have unequivocally set out the standards that the Puerto Rican Department of Education (PRDE) needs to meet. Despite these clear legal standards, the PRDE has not provided adequate educational access and services to this vulnerable population. Because Puerto Rican judicial and administrative remedies have thus far failed to effectively change PRDE practice in this area to achieve even minimum services for the large majority of individuals, members of and advocates for this population are starting to look beyond the shores of the island for potential alternative routes toward justice.
The interviews that Clinic students carried out in Puerto Rico focused on stakeholders – plaintiffs, experts, and officials – in the case of Rosa Lydia Vélez v. Department of Education, a class action seeking enforcement of the right to education for minors with disabilities, which has been percolating in the Commonwealth courts of Puerto Rico since 1980. Despite the fact that the plaintiffs won a definitive consent decree in 2002 which found the PRDE in violation of its duty to provide educational services and laid out the stipulated obligations of the PRDE toward all students with disabilities, the PRDE has consistently failed to live up to even minimum standards under this judgment. Consequently, individual parents of children with disabilities – at least those who have the resources or capacity to do so – spend years trying to vindicate their children’s right to education in administrative procedures and appellate courts, while their children lose critical years of their education.
Clinic students Alexandra Logue, Zachary Rotstein, and Tess Mullin, Clinic Director Francisco Rivera Juaristi, and Clinical Fellow Britton Schwartz pictured with Rosa Lydia Velez, the lead plaintiff for the 34 year-old class action against the Puerto Rico Department of Education.
The interviews led to strategic brainstorming between the Clinic and local partners in Puerto Rico. Taking into account the nature of the hurdles in this case, the Clinic and its partners, in conjunction with the clients, are evaluating the possibility of seeking recourse before regional and international human rights mechanisms. The goal is to pursue greater local and federal accountability for these deprivations of rights, increase visibility of the issue (both nation- and region-wide), harness political will toward meaningful implementation of the right to education for children with special needs, and build collaborative relationships with national and international special education organizations.
All of the students who participated in the trip unanimously felt that the experience was an unparalleled opportunity to gain hands-on experience in the field of international human rights law. “The best aspect of the trip was learning from the people whom we interviewed,” says second-year law student Tess Mullin. She emphasized that “not only did we learn interviewing skills and strategies from the Puerto Rican attorneys and students we are collaborating with, but we also were inspired by the face-to-face contact with victims, who let us into their homes and shared their stories with us.” All of the students agreed that, as a result of the trip, they were more inspired than ever to pursue justice for all people with disabilities.
Keep an eye out in the future for further updates about the Clinic’s involvement in this case.
