[Assam] US court retains flawed Hinduism textbooks - HT/Indo-Asian News

[Ram Sarangapani]

  This is interesting. Highlights are mine.
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A California court has accepted a Hindu body's contention that some
textbooks with a flawed presentation of Hinduism were approved improperly,
but refused to throw them out of schools for now.

A flawed approval process had resulted 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*, the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) said in a press release.

The California Superior Court last week upheld HAF's claim that the state
School Board of Education (SBE) had followed a flawed and illegal approval
process for sixth grade textbooks.

But the court denied its demand that SBE be required to throw out the
currently approved textbooks and revisit the entire textbook adoption
process, it said.

In his ruling, Judge Patrick Marlette wrote the California SBE has been
conducting its textbook approval process under invalid 'underground
regulations', but said the rejection of textbooks would be disruptive not
only to affected sixth graders, but potentially every California public
school student using any and every textbooks.

*So while the process followed in adopting the contentious Hinduism
sections, and all recently approved textbooks in California, was illegal—as
HAF had argued—the judge apparently decided against a sweeping ruling that
could open the door to other lawsuits* discarding textbooks in the most
populous state in the US, the release said.

As the immediate goal of revising textbooks was unmet, HAF attorneys are
considering their options for an appeal to force revisions to the Hinduism
section in the contested textbooks, it said.
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