Although many rights advocates might be wary of experiments, this form of inquiry can offer valuable insights to our understanding of human rights. Take, for example, the common strategy of discrediting reports of discrimination by saying that the disparate treatment was justified. Many widely held prejudices—such as women not being suitable for the hard sciences, or black American men being “predisposed” to criminality, or the Roma all being cheaters and thieves—are frequently used to justify discrimination. And as ludicrous as these claims are, demonstrating that such treatment is not justified can be quite challenging.
In the case of the Roma, quantitative data that might reveal discrimination are either not collected or not available to human rights researchers.
In the case of the Roma, for example, quantitative data that might reveal discrimination are either not collected or not available to human rights researchers. Asking non-Roma people directly whether they discriminate against the Roma likely won’t yield accurate results; direct questions after all, get at what people say they do, rather than what they actually do. Asking Roma to report discrimination is similarly problematic. Such questions might be upsetting, or people might not want to report discrimination because they fear reprisals. Others might be embarrassed, or perhaps some are so used to disparate treatment that they don’t recognize discrimination for what it is.
