The court ruling comes in the wake of complaints by some parents in 2013, that yoga would promote Hindu and Buddhist doctrines.
The three-judge panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal however upheld the decision by the San Diego Superior Court that the Encinitas School District’s yoga program was ”devoid of any religious, mystical or spiritual trappings.”
”We conclude that the program is secular… (and) does not have the primary effect of advancing or inhibiting religion, and does not excessively entangle the school district in religion,” the appeals court said in its ruling.
In 2013, when some parents and groups first filed a case, the lower court judge in California dismissed the plea, stating that yoga had originated in India but was now a ”distinctly American cultural phenomenon.” Yoga is very popular in the United States, with the nation also lending its support to the International Yoga Day resolution at the UN.
The program to bring yoga into the life of students was funded with $533,000 from the K. Pattabhi Jois Foundation, with support from hedge-fund billionaire Paul Tudor Jones II and his wife Sonia. The program was part of a three-year pilot that began in 2011, and involved two yoga classes a week to complement regular physical education classes.
Thirty families had pulled their children out of the classes, and had stated that the yoga classes “represented a serious breach of the public trust.” Several parents however were in favor of the program, and the school had stated that the program would also put a stop to aggressive behavior. The school had pointed out in court that all possible religious connotations including the word “Namaste” had been removed. The names of the asanas were also given in English translations rather than in their original Sanskrit.
