Jewish Institutions Band Together, File Suit Against New State Education Requirements
by CrownHeights.info
PEARLS, an umbrella organization backed by Orthodox Jewish institutions, has announced that a lawsuit has been filed in New York State Supreme Court, Albany County, against the New York State Education Department seeking a declaration that the new regulations enacted by SED are in violation of state and federal law, and therefore null and void.
According to the lawsuit, “Yeshivas teach their students that education and service are the highest values of all. They learn to cherish and practice the values of charity, morality, humility, personal responsibility, and responsibility to community and others. They are exposed at a young age to an education that prizes academic rigor and collaboration between students, which cultivates critical thinking and analytical skills, and that creates life-long learners.”
For this reason, the lawsuit alleges that “yeshivas are the central and irreplaceable pillar of the Orthodox
Jewish life in New York,” making the new regulations “a “frustration” of the “Petitioners’ constitutionally
protected rights to the free exercise of religion and free speech, and violate their due process rights and right to equal protection.”
The lawsuit also alleges that the state was on a targeted attack against Yeshivos, highlighting a break in the required procedures as the state had already decided to enact the regulations.
This legal battle has taken place multiple times before, with Yeshivos coming out on top multiple times.
CHANA Pesha Jacobson
For the sake of chinuch and democracy, I hope that PEARLS is successful. I also believe that to combat this challenge the said schools need to create their own good ruach by being more democratic and welcoming of students of divergent abilities and the desires of parents who want a day in the operations of the schools be it curriculum, hours, discipline and rewards , feeding etc.