ABSTRACT
This poem circulated in German disability circles in the fall of 1997 as an expression of outrage against Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court’s October 29 ruling that disabled students do not have a right to an inte grated education and may be forced to attend a special school for disabled children (Bundesverfassungsgericht, 8 October 1997)- The case involved a 13-year-old girl who successfully attended an integrated school until the fourth grade. She is paraplegic and received special education in some sub jects, but in all others she was fully integrated. When she prepared to trans fer to a new school for her next level of schooling (as is the custom in Germany), the new school’s administration ruled that the existing teaching personnel could not meet her needs and that therefore it was in the girl’s best interest to attend a separate school for students with disabilities. The court sided with the school. Ruling that as long as the reasons are pressing and concern either the ability of the personnel or the best interest of the child, a school would be acting in accordance with the law in making such judgments.
