“Speak Italian”: Moroccan Teenagers at Center of School Controversy
Two 14-year-old students of Moroccan origin were reprimanded after speaking Arabic at a school near Padua. A student union denounced racist remarks. The principal disputes that account and says the intervention was related to their behavior.
The two teenagers attend the De Nicola technical business institute in Piove di Sacco. Their parents are from Morocco, but they grew up in the Italian town and speak Italian fluently, principal Matteo Burattin told Corriere del Veneto on October 2.
The Osa collective, the Alternative Student Opposition, brought the incident to public attention. According to its account, students were exchanging a few words in Arabic during a break when a teacher reprimanded them and then sent them to the vice principal.
Activists say they were then told to return to their country of origin if they wanted to keep using their language. Their statement, shared by Telenuovo on October 1, denounced an intervention by school officials who are supposed to protect students and promote their inclusion.
Osa also gives the incident a political dimension. The collective accuses the Meloni government of fueling divisions between young people born in Italy and those from immigrant backgrounds. It is calling on students to mobilize and report discrimination at their schools.
Principal defends reprimand
Matteo Burattin describes a different scene. According to him, the incident occurred during a lesson, when a teacher could no longer continue her explanation because several students were disrupting the class. She is said to have called the vice principal, who reprimanded everyone who was disturbing the lesson.
The two teenagers were among that group, he said. He claims they were speaking Arabic and laughing at his colleague, behavior he interpreted as mocking her. The request to speak Italian, he said, referred to what they wanted to say in response to her.
The controversy comes in the same province as the one sparked by the postponement of a Moroccan woman’s citizenship oath in Cadoneghe. The mayor had interrupted the ceremony after deeming her Italian insufficient, despite the language certification in her file.
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In Piove di Sacco, Burattin rejects the accusations of racism and Islamophobia. He says it was an ordinary reprimand. He also says politics should be kept out of school.
