Yoga’s popularity in the United States may have grown leaps and bounds over the years, but some parents in Southern California have now filed a civil lawsuit demanding the removal of a yoga programme from the physical education component on the grounds that it infringes on the religious beliefs of students.
Their ire is directed at the Ashtanga yoga programme, developed and conducted by the KP Jois Foundation. The school district authorities say they have answered concerns raised by about 30 families, indicating that they have no plans to discontinue the programme.
Taking up cudgels on behalf of some parents who have sued the Encinitas Union School District, the National Centre for law & Policy speaks of “civil rights violations resulting from its inherently and pervasively religious Ashtanga yoga programme”.
Attorney Dean Broyles claimed in a news release that the yoga programme represents “a serious breach of the public trust”, and that it is “extremely divisive and has unfortunately led to the harassment, discrimination, bullying and segregation of children who, for good reasons, opt out of the programme”.
Equating yoga with Hinduism, Broyles, who is representing a family that filed the lawsuit, told ABC News: “It’s a situation where the state is endorsing religious beliefs and practices, which is forbidden under California and federal law”.
“The goal would be to have a judge order the district to comply with the law,” said Broyles. “If they comply with the law, they will need to suspend the yoga programme and offer physical education that complies with the law to their students.” The lawsuit is not seeking any monetary compensation, though.
The Encinitas school district authorities, however, are dismissive of the claims made in the lawsuit. Superintendent Timothy Baird has been quoted as saying that yoga classes, as a typical physical education component, have proved to be successful and positive without any religious implications.
“The students come in, do some warm ups, do the typical stretching and movement. There’s absolutely no religious instruction that goes on, whatsoever,” Baird told the network, adding: “I believe what he (attorney Broyles) is saying is just the motions of the yoga stretching is somehow invoking Hinduism -- and in America, where 90 to 95 per cent of the practitioners are not even Hindu.”