A US court has held that yoga, as taught in elementary schools in southern California, is secular and does not violate the religious rights of students. Its practice does not advance or inhibit any religion, the court ruled, allowing the Encinitas Union school district to continue with the twice-weekly yoga classes to about 5,600 students
Rejecting a lawsuit claiming that yoga promoted Hinduism and inhibited Christianity, a three-judge bench of a California appeals court pronounced: “While the practice of yoga may be religious in some contexts, yoga classes as taught in the district are, as the trial court determined, ‘devoid of any religious, mystical, or spiritual trappings’.”
After yoga was introduced in school district in 2011 under a grant from a non-profit foundation as an alternative to traditional gym classes, parents of 2 children brought the lawsuit, arguing that the yoga programme was inherently spiritual and therefore unconstitutional.