Chicago-based human rights advocates have sent a letter to the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights asking the international body to monitor Chicago’s school closings.

The “letter of allegation” sent Tuesday evening to Geneva, Switzerland, asks U.N. officials to investigate whether the closing of 49 Chicago elementary schools violates children’s human rights.

“The United Nations taking this issue up and giving it serious attention will really bring home to Chicago and the United States that there are violations occurring here of human rights, potentially, not just about a budget crisis,” said Sital Kalantry, the University of Chicago law professor who filed the letter on behalf of the Midwest Coalition for Human Rights.

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