Haf brought the lawsuit contending that the procedure through which the SBE reviewed and approved revisions in sixth grade textbooks, especially as to their presentation of Hinduism, was not conducted under regulations required under the California Administrative Procedures Act and contravened the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act. As a result, HAF held, anti-Hindu academics were illegally allowed to bias the process against Hindu parents and students in California resulting in textbooks that presented the debunked Aryan Migration Theory as fact, misrepresented caste as central to Hinduism and left the impression that Hinduism devalued the role of women.
In his ruling on Hindu American Foundation, et al., v. California State Board of Education, et al, Case No. 06 CS 00386, Judge Patrick Marlette of the California Superior Court upheld HAF'sclaim that the textbook adoption process was flawed and illegal. Judge Marlette wrote that the California SBE, ?at all times relevant to this matter has been conducting its textbook approval process under invalid ?underground regulations.?? He withheld an opinion on the violation of the open meeting act deciding that since the entire process was already ?invalid? a specific ruling would be redundant.
In his conflicted ruling, however, Judge Marlette ruled that the ?relief? demanded by HAF?that is to reject the textbooks adopted under an illegal process?would be disruptive not only to those affected sixth graders, but potentially every California public school student using any and every textbooks adopted under the SBE'sunlawful policies. Judge Marlette wrote, ?The Court therefore determines?that respondent (SBE) should be permitted a reasonable opportunity to correct the deficiencies in its regulatory framework governing the textbook approval process?while maintaining the current system in the interim.?
?We are pleased, of course, that Judge Marlette agreed with our position all along that the process in adopting the textbooks was flawed and illegal,? said Suhag Shukla, Esq., legal counsel of HAF who coordinated the lawsuit with attorneys at Olson Hagel and Fishburn, LLP in representing HAF and Hindu parents. ?It would seem logical that if the process was illegal, then the resulting textbooks must be tossed out and the adoption process repeated. Apparently, Judge Marlette is reluctant to reject possibly millions of books, in addition to those in this case covering sixth grade social studies, that could be implicated and allowed them to stand for now?that is very disappointing.?
Despite stating that he considered the declarations and correspondences attesting to the inaccuracies and discrepancies in the Hinduism section of adopted textbooks from several scholars that actually teach Hinduism, including a past president of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) and current co-chairs of the Hinduism Unit of the AAR, Judge Marlette held that the textbooks were not necessarily illegal in terms of the standards set forth by the education code because they were not ?grossly inaccurate.?
