INDIA ABROAD JUNE 19, 2009


Hindu body settles case against California textbooks
GEORGE JOSEPH
The California textbook case has finally ended in a settlement between the state Board of Education and the California Parents for the Equalization of Educational Materials (CAPEEM), a Hindu organization that was set up to fight the case.
United States District Judge Frank C Damrell Jr in Sacramento, California approved the settlement to pay the Northridge-based CAPEEM $175,000. Some say it will not suffice to cover the legal fees and court charges incurred in the three years the case dragged on. (This is not true and a red herring, in the interview posted below, Arvinf Kumar clearly states that they recovered twice the costs that they incurred)
Also, crucially, though the board , will pay this amount, it will not make any curriculum concessions (this is a gross oversimplification , read the whole column). Earlier, a Sacramento Superior Court had in 2007 allowed the Washington, DC-based Hindu American Foundation $250,000 to settle its case with the board. (ED: the net of this is that the California tax payer has had to shell out 425,000 $ at a time when the state is 20,000,000,000 in deficit and is issuing IOUs to its vendors . And all because some knucklehead in the CBE decided to invite Prof Witzel to intervene in the case )
With the settlement with CAPEEM Judge Frank C Damrell entered the final judgment in the case against the State Board of Education and the state's curriculum czar. The suits by CAPEEM and HAF accused the board of portraying Hinduism wrongly in its textbooks and flouting constitutional guarantees,
CAPEEM alleged that the board discriminated against Hindus during the adoption process for sixth-grade history and social science textbooks, It also accused that the textbooks indoctrinate children with Abrahamic religions and teach biblical events as actual facts. while treating Hinduism in a derogatory manner. It said the board failed to provide equal opportunities and equal representation to every religion and culture.
Seattle attorney Venkat Balasubramani, who appeared for CAPEEEM, said it would not be true to say the Hindu group had merely won a Pyrrhic vctory,.
'The lawsuits demonstrated that when facing arbitrary, disparate and discriminatory treatment, the Hindu American community is not going to just turn the other cheek'

Suhag Shukla, executive director of the HAF, an attorney , told INDIA ABROAD
Symbolically I think both HAFs lawsuit and CAPEEM’s lawsuit were extremely valuable. To the state board the lawsuits demonstrated that when facing arbitrary, disparate and discriminatory treatment, the Hindu American community is not going to turn the other cheek. "And to the Hindu American community, they proved our intellectual capital in being able to understand the laws of this land and articulate bases for change; our courage and perseverance in taking the chance to stand up for our rights; of course, our financial strength; and most importantly, the power of a collective voice," he said.
Theresa Garcia, the new executive director of the Board of Education, told the Sacramento Bee that she doesn't see it as a no-win for CAPEEM. 'It was a good outcome for everybody” she said.
After the settlement with the HAF, the board took efforts to change much of the textbook as per the request of the Hindu organizations. “The board worked really hard to make the changes they had requested following the suit in state court. We only wanted to ensure that all religions are depicted accurately” she said.
CAPEEM and HAF filed the suits after their pleas before the Board of Education failed. the Board of Education failed. The Hindu groups appeared before the board to challenge many ideas depicted in the textbook, and proposed many changes. However some of the more liberal of the Hindu groups opposed some changes sought by the Hindutva oriented hard-line CAPEEM, leading to considerable confusion.
When the board selected the text, the HAF filed suit in the Superior Court in 2006. The suit said that the board did not take into consideration the concerns of California Hindu parents, and that the religion was portrayed mistakenly and unfairly in the social studies text.
State superior Court Judge Patrick Marlette rejected HAFs content claim, but ruled that the text book adoption process was improper and not done as per the applicable law
Following this judgment, the board published new regulations for the textbook-adoption process. As readers may recall the court ruled in favor of HAF in finding that the board had, throughout the textbook adoption process, acted arbitrarily and illegally, Shukla noted.
As a result, under court order the board had to revamp its entire textbook and instructional material adoption process last year with the addition of numerous safe¬guards for significantly greater transparency and public accountability. The court did not however grant our request for a recall of the textbooks; the court had before it advance copies of the textbooks with nearly 75 percent of the edits suggested by the Hindu community already incorporated, and accordingly the judge did not find the advance copies to be grossly inaccurate.

Though HAF then left the litigation scene, CAPEEM went to Federal court. However, the court only agreed with CAPEEM that the text book adoption violated the Constitution's equal-protection guarantee. The judge however denied other claims based on the establishment clause, which requires government neutrality towards religion, as well as its free speech and association clause. 'Believing that its points had been clearly understood by the defendants, CAPEEM opted not to prolong the litigation. The State entered into negotiations with CAPEEM and agreed to pay $175,000 in exchange for a voluntary dismissal of the lawsuit.

'CAPEEM looks forward to participating in a review process free from biases, and to work with the State to approve textbooks that do not favor or disfavor any religious doctrines; a message on the body's website says.
In terms of the CAPEEM settlement. I do not believe I am in a position to comment on the merits of the case," Shukla said. "'CAPEEM's lawsuit was organizationally and legally different from that of HAFs; CAPEEM had federal constitutional claims in federal court while HAF had pro¬cedural claims in state court.
As an attorney. I found the due process claim brought forth by CAPEEM sound, given the arbitrary actions of the board vis-a-vis California Hindus, but I also know that litigation can be a mentally and financially draining process and the reality is that over 95 percent of cases set¬tle out of court."












GEORGE JOSEPH

The most important aspect of the case was that it challenged the Biblical indoctrination in history textbooks In California under the Establishment Clause and brought the issue to the attention of Americans for the first time," said Arvind Kumar, one of the four people who would start the California Parents for the Equalization of Educational Materials. The others are Mayank Shekhar, Rajesh Goswami and Murali Menon. We Intend to continue opposing biblical indoctrination In textbooks through lawsuits. Kumar also disputed the contention that CAPEEM had not through the settlement, got enough to even cover its court expenses and said in fact the settlement was for double the amount the body spent on the lawsuit.
The group had retained as one of its lawyers the redoubtable Mike Newdow who hit national prominence when he filed suit asking that the words 'under God be removed from the Pledge of Allegiance, and suits to remove the motto 'In God we Trust' from the Federal currency. He had also filed a case to prevent the US Supreme Court from using the words 'So help you God, In the presidential oath Barak Obama had taken at his January 21 swearing in.

Joe Barnhart, one of CAPEEM’s expert witnesses who testified on the question of biblical indoctrination in the textbooks, was one of the victims of last year's shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist . Church in Knoxville. Barnhart a retired professor of philosophy and religious studies at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas survived the attack. "The textbooks treat biblical myths as historical facts instead of treating them as religious beliefs, and even assign dates to biblical events. The chapters on Judaism and Christianity together read like Sunday School textbooks, B Kumar said. Citing examples, Kumar said the books claim that Paul had a vision of Jesus in 33 CE; Moses received the Ten Commandments from God in 1290 BCE; Constantine saw a flaming cross in the Sky, and that Jesus worked miracles when he grew to manhood. The books also assert that the Egyptians could not capture the Jews because the Lord made the wheels fall off their Chariots.

"We would like to see changes in the areas where the books indulge in religious indoctrination of children, and would like to see the books remove claims about Jesus’ miracles and his so called Resurrection as historical facts, and would like the book to teach the truth that the ‘Aryan Invasion Theory' is not only unscientific, but a byproduct of the biblical stories of Noah’s Ark and the Tower of Babel. The books must also teach that the field of philology is a pseudo-science that arose as an attempt to prove that every language originated in the Tower of Babel, a fact known to many scholars. Kumar says the case exposed the fact that the indoctrination in textbooks was no accident, and that the Church was involved in creating these textbooks. For example, CAPEEM uncovered an email exchange between Rae Belisle, the legal counsel of the Department of Education, and the pastor of a church, to determine the content of the disputed textbooks, in which the Legal counsel stated that the California standards require the textbooks to be consistent with New Testament. "Another email we uncovered when we issued a subpoena was a celebratory email by a Curriculum Commission member who informed a member of his church about his role in getting the textbooks to teach about the New testament version of the crucifixion of Jesus.¬