ENCINITAS — During a courtroom hearing last week it was decided a lawsuit demanding the end of a school yoga program will be heard May 20.
Two months ago, the Escondido-based National Center for Law and Policy filed a civil rights lawsuit seeking an injunction against the EUSD (Encinitas Union School District) yoga program on the grounds that it violates the establishment clause, or what’s more commonly known as “separation of church and state.”
“I wouldn’t have filed this lawsuit if I didn’t think we would win,” said Broyles, who represents the law center.
As proof of the religious nature of yoga, Broyle’s legal complaint says that parents witnessed students in the district practicing sun salutations — a series of yoga moves and other poses. The complaint asserts the poses are “worshipful.”
District officials, however, have maintained that the yoga program doesn’t contain any kind of religious component, and that it was built on state and federal fitness standards, not any kind of religious doctrine.
EUSD introduced yoga classes at five of its schools in the fall with a $533,000 grant from the Jois Foundation. In January, yoga debuted at the district’s four remaining schools.
Broyles said expert witness Candy Gunther Brown will testify on behalf of his case. Brown, a religious studies professor at Indiana University, penned a declaration arguing that yoga is inherently religious. She believes yoga can’t be separated from Hinduism, Western metaphysics and other religions.
“Protestants have been prone to misunderstand embodied traditions in which practice is itself an essential expression of religious devotion,” Brown said in the declaration. “For many Hindus and Buddhists, for instance, religious significance exists directly in the doing, rather than secondarily in believing or saying something, while performing bodily or mental practices.”
But David Peck, representing EUSD parents, countered that people don’t view modern yoga studios as religious. And the same goes for the advent of competitive yoga, he added.
“Those aren’t religious; neither is the district’s program,” Peck said.
He added that Brown’s declaration is “80 percent opinion and has no relevance to the case at hand.”
As well as committing to a trial date, the judge during last week’s public hearing let Peck, a lawyer from the Encinitas-based Coast Law Group, intervene in the case.
Peck noted the district’s lawyer, Jack Sleeth, will take the lead in the lawsuit. Both attorneys took the case pro bono.
Peck said he’s representing the parents of more than 130 students in the district.
“Many district parents are interested in preserving this program,” Peck said.
According to the legal complaint, the case will also focus on students who were pulled from the program by their parents and allegedly haven’t been receiving 200 minutes of state-mandated physical education time.
District officials have countered this claim, arguing that EUSD isn’t technically required to provide an alternative program.
Still, they say the district has worked to accommodate those students.
6 comments
@joneinto. If you don’t like giving gifts and having vacation days, then don’t. Work those days and no one is forcing you to give or receive gifts.
Funny how the only religious stuff allowed in work and school are holidays that give out vacation days and holidays that give gifts. Yoga being practiced, NO WAY!….exchanging gifts and taking the 25th off, HELL YES!
Even the judge does Hot Yoga! Wow, talk about not only a conflict of interest but also a complete lack of judgement on the part of the judge! Bikram is an extremely crass individual, to say the least. He is again being sued. See the NY Times article about his being sued for sexual harassment. He has no problem, for he is an admitted adulterer! Judge that.
“New age yoga: Old age theft and surrender,” by Swami Paramwas is a fascinating community commentary in the March 22 edition of the Coast News: http://thecoastnews.com/2013/03/new-age-yoga-old-age-theft-and-surrender/
According to the Swami, an “expert” in Yoga, its practice cannot be separated from spirituality and religion.
EUSD Superintendent Tim Baird handled this controversy badly. An Institute of Yoga is paying the school district, providing instructors. The exercises are healthy, and I have no issue with them, personally, but they wouldn’t be offered outside of being labeled as Yoga.
To some, It seems a double standard to disallow prayer but to allow other spiritual practices. In Swami Param’s articles he describes New Age Yoga as NAY:
“In the “NAYsayers” dogma, Yoga is everything but religion. To them, Yoga is a physical exercise and, perhaps, an elite universal spiritual practice. The thoughtless cliché: “I am spiritual but not religious,” is a common deception. It is in this pseudo-spirituality that NAY gets very bizarre.”
“. . . Divorcing any aspect of Yoga from its Hindu roots is dishonest and a grave insult to a great world religion and it adherents. . . . If one wants to learn Hinduism/Yoga (and perhaps become a Hindu), do that. If one wants to stretch and relax, be thoughtful and considerate and don’t call it Yoga.”
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Yoga in the school system is a wonderful idea. It can be totally non religious and included as physical education only. Yoga promotes serenity, less ego, centering, peace, and a sense of connection to the other children in the class. Putting the hands together is not necessarily prayer but a balancing of the two sides of the brain. Yoga should be promoted in all schools as a healthy activity for young and old.
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