{"id":36248,"date":"2017-02-13T13:17:30","date_gmt":"2017-02-13T07:47:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/globalpress.hinduismnow.org\/?p=36248"},"modified":"2017-02-13T13:17:30","modified_gmt":"2017-02-13T07:47:30","slug":"hinduism-california-school-curriculum-civil-rights-lawsuit-filed-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/?p=36248","title":{"rendered":"Hinduism in California school curriculum: Civil rights lawsuit filed against state"},"content":{"rendered":"

FREMONT \u2014 A civil rights lawsuit filed in federal court this week\u00a0charges that schools in the state discriminate in their portrayal of Hinduism.
\nThe California Parents for the Equalization of Educational Materials, also known as CAPEEM, and\u00a0three Bay Area residents filed the lawsuit to challenge California\u2019s history-social science curriculum. They say the curriculum appears to highlight the positive aspects of other religions, such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and Confucianism, but does not provide the same treatment of Hinduism.
\nThe lawsuit was filed against the state Department of Education, state Board of Education and several school districts throughout the Bay Area. It\u00a0also names the San Ramon Valley, Cupertino, Milpitas and San Francisco school districts, at which the CAPEEN has members with children attending.
\nAlthough Hindu-American groups declared victory <\/a>in their campaign to get the Board of Education to use the term \u201cAncient India\u201d instead of \u201cSouth Asia\u201d<\/a> this summer, more work needs to be done in making the state\u2019s social science\u00a0framework and curriculum less discriminatory toward Hinduism, said Glenn Katon, an attorney\u00a0who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Hindu-American group.
\nThe state board\u2019s adopted curriculum still devotes almost half the discussion of Hinduism to the caste system, he said. But for every other religion, the board has followed a policy of refusing to include negative examples that would instill prejudice, he alleged. For instance, there is no mention of negative interpretations of Christianity that supported slavery or condemned same-sex relationships, he said.
\n\u201cHinduism is portrayed from a critical perspective, so I guess really what we\u2019re asking for, is just be consistent,\u201d he said.
\nAlso, the adopted framework says \u201cthat the caste system is a religious belief of Hinduism, but that\u2019s highly debatable\u2026,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s obviously highly negative and would embarrass and shame people who hold that religion.\u201d
\nThe complaint further alleges other ways the\u00a0California curriculum treats Hinduism unfairly and differently from all other religions.
\n\u201cAs a mother of two children in California public schools and a member of the Hindu community, I have seen the pain and embarrassment the current curriculum causes our families,\u201d said Arti Kapoor of San Ramon in a statement issued by CAPEEM. \u201cI hope this lawsuit will force the Department of Education to correct the discrimination we now face.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The state Department of Education declined to comment. And San Ramon Valley school district spokeswoman Elizabeth Graswich said her district could not comment either\u00a0because\u00a0it hadn\u2019t had time to review the lawsuit.
\nThe complaint can be found at\u00a0www.capeem.org\/docs\/ Complaint2017.pdf<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FREMONT \u2014 A civil rights lawsuit filed in federal court this week\u00a0charges that schools in the state discriminate in their portrayal of Hinduism. The California Parents for the Equalization of Educational Materials, also known as CAPEEM, and\u00a0three Bay Area residents filed the lawsuit to challenge California\u2019s history-social science curriculum. They say the curriculum appears to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36248"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36248\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}