A Win for Religious Liberty Against Required High School Hindu Meditation Class
In a dramatic win for religious liberty, Chicago Public Schools have been ordered to pay out over $2.6 million to high school students in a class action religious freedom case.
Former public school students in Chicago were required to participate in a Transcendental Meditation™ program during class. There was no opt-out and no parental permission required.
“As part of their in-school curriculum,” attorney John Mauck, partner at Mauck & Baker, explained, “the students were either required to participate in Transcendental Meditation or were deprived daily of a half hour of academic opportunity and made to maintain silence while their classmates focused their minds on secret mantras.”
The TM sessions were put in place by the Chicago Board of Education and the New York-based David Lynch Foundation, which aims to, “ensure that every child anywhere in the world who wanted to learn to meditate could do so. Now the Foundation is actively teaching TM to adults and children in countries everywhere.”
Kaya Hughes, now 22, recalls how she was made to take part in the program called “Quiet Time” at 16 years old. Her involvement was mandated regardless of any objections she may have had. She shared how despite its innocuous title, the mandatory sessions included an uncomfortably private one-on-one Hindu “Puja” worship ceremony in a darkened room, chanting, religious paraphernalia, and secret mantras which were actually the names of Hindu gods. The students were given mantras to mentally recite twice daily for 15 minutes.
In emails with the writer, Mauck added that over the four year duration of this required class, students complained among themselves and to their teachers. One group of students united their class in opposition—they boycotted the program—and their teacher reported that resistance to the principal. One student reported that she felt she had to go to Confession after doing the Meditation.
Another student, Mariyah Green, was told to kneel in front of the illuminated picture of Guru Dev or jeopardize her eligibility for basketball! She refused and told her mother. Her mother told their pastor, who wrote to the school principal in protest. Student Amonte Williams complained, and his father, a Baptist deacon, wrote a letter of protest to the Board of Education.
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