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Detention of the child that was at issue in court.
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The legal dispute over punishment for a third-grader who spoke to a friend in Turkish in the playground of her elementary school in the Black Forest-Baar district of Baden-Württemberg was settled a good two years after the incident with a settlement.
This was announced by the family's lawyer on Tuesday.
The regional council of Freiburg confirmed this on request.
As the school supervisory authority, it classified the "additional task" issued about two years ago as an "educational measure based on the school law," the press office told SPIEGEL.
The Administrative Court of Freiburg did not share this classification in “this special individual case and in the special situation”, according to the regional council.
From the point of view of the court, "the general personal rights of the student are more important than the authorization to use pedagogical educational measures," says the statement of the regional council.
In the comparison available to SPIEGEL, the state of Baden-Württemberg, represented by the regional council of Freiburg, concedes that the punishment imposed by the school at the time "was illegal because of the use of the Turkish language in the schoolyard during breaks."
The nine-year-old girl was supposed to explain on half a page: »Why do we speak German at school!« Her teacher wrote it down in her exercise book.
Because the behavior contradicts the class rules, according to which German is to be spoken at school.
The mother then contacted the teacher.
Her daughter doesn't understand why she should refrain from speaking Turkish at school in the future, the mother wrote at the time, among other things, "it's part of her.
As parents, we are very worried.« SPIEGEL has received the communication anonymously.
The family finally hired a lawyer who lodged an objection to the detention and complaints about the supervision of the authorities.
When the appeal was rejected in September 2020, he filed a lawsuit, lawyer Yalcin Tekinoglu said.
After the settlement of the legal dispute, however, it is still unclear whether there is unequal treatment of different languages in school rules to speak German, according to Tekinoglu.
Two years ago, he expressed concern that the rule was only aimed at so-called migrant languages such as Turkish or Arabic.
“If pupils use English or Latin, for example, outside of class on the school premises during the break in class, would appropriate punishment be ordered?” Tekinoglu asked the authorities at the time.
That, says Tekinoglu, "is still the subject of ongoing disciplinary proceedings and will continue to be pursued vehemently."