Content area
Full Text
On March 17, 2006 a transnational alliance of. Hindu American civic groups filed suit against the California State Board of Education in state superior court. The suit contended that the 2006 History-Social Science adoption process for the 6th grade world history textbooks, in which California middle school students are introduced to the history of ancient India, was in violation of state laws. Soon after, a motion was filed by these same civic organizations to stop the printing of the new standards aligned 6th grade textbooks approved by the State Board. The motion was denied by the court. Given the gravity of the charges and the potential of the suit to disrupt middle school social studies instructional programs across the state the court acted expeditiously. On September 1, 2006 the state Superior Court made its ruling.
The Court ruled on the two major "claims" made by the "petitioners." In Hindu American Foundation (HAF), et al. v. California State Board of Education et al. the Court was in basic agreement with the (HAF) Petitioner's claim that the State Board failed, in some instances, to follow state laws regulating public meetings for the History-Social Science adoption process. However legally questionable, they were not egregious enough to warrant the nullification of the adoption of the 6th grade textbooks. But instead they were considered by the Court, to simply be "deficiencies in its regulatory framework" that could be corrected while "maintaining the current [adoption] system."
In addition to the procedural illegalities the Court turned aside the more far reaching claims, which this article considers, about whether the "content" of the newly adopted 6th grade textbooks "conform[ed] to applicable legal standards." The HAF claimed that the 6th grade textbooks "portray[ed] the Hindu religion in their discussion of the history, culture and religious traditions of ancient India in a negative light." (in effect the content covered by the Grade 6 History-Social Science Standard 6.5: 1-7). The HAF claimed that "the texts contain[ed] factual inaccuracies and [were] generally . . . not neutral."
To paraphrase the great military historian Carl von Clausewtiz's 1873 classic, On War, this precedent setting lawsuit is textbook politics by other means, suggestive no doubt of culture wars to come. The lawsuit went forward after the State Board of...