Update: Chicago lawsuit against TM public schools program expanded into class action

Plaintiffs bringing legal action against the David Lynch Foundation (the DLF), a Chicago Public Schools district, and the University of Chicago, seeking redress as a result of the so-called "Quiet Time" program to introduce TM into public schools, have amended their complaint, making it a class action lawsuit.

Puja table set up for TM instruction.
The framed image is a registered trademark/service mark
held by Maharishi Foundation Liechtenstein in the United States.
Photo by the author.

Previously, from August 2020:

Lawsuit in progress: David Lynch Foundation abandons TM "Quiet Time" program in Chicago

Here's the relevant part of the amendment which was filed yesterday.

A. Class Definition(s)

94. The (b)(2) Injunctive and Declaratory Relief Class consists of:

All persons who are CPS students, CPS teachers, parents or legal guardians of CPS students directly associated with any CPS school facilitating the “Quiet Time” program, or any other program involving the practice of “Transcendental Meditation.”

95. The Three (b)(3) Sub-Classes consist of:

All students who attended a CPS school during a period when the school facilitated the “Quiet Time” program.

All teachers at CPS schools who were required to accommodate, endorse, facilitate, or enable the “Quiet Time” program at a CPS school where they were employed at the time.

All parents and legal guardians of students who attended a CPS school during a period when the school facilitated the “Quiet Time” program.

This is apparently the second class action lawsuit brought against organizations attempting to offer TM in public schools. In 1975 a California school district was the target of a class action for offering TM as an English elective, for credit, and as part of a physical education program. The suit was dismissed as moot after the school district declared that they would never again offer or recommend such courses.

The three defendants have not yet replied to the complaint, except to successfully challenge a demand for an immediate temporary restraining order.

The amended complaint may be viewed and downloaded, here.

Lawsuit in progress: David Lynch Foundation abandons TM "Quiet Time" program in Chicago

A lawsuit has recently been filed against the David Lynch Foundation (the DLF), a Chicago Public Schools district, and the University of Chicago as a result of the Transcendental Meditation organization’s effort to orchestrate what it called a “research study,” to demonstrate what they have claimed are the benefits of TM for high school students. The plaintiffs bringing this action include the student, parent and substitute teacher who testified at a Chicago Board of Education hearing one year ago. They alleged that, to participate in the program, students were required to participate in the TM initiation “puja” ritual, which had already been found to be religious in nature in a previous Federal court case. They also alleged that students were coerced in various ways to participate in the program and that class time was wasted on meditation. All of these activities were running under the “Quiet Time” moniker, the somewhat generic, obfuscating title that the DLF has given to its advocacy of TM in both public and private schools.

Puja table set up for TM instruction.
Fruit, flowers and handkerchief are generally provided by the prospective meditator.
Photo by the author.

Read the original story here at the TM-Free Blog, from August 2019:
Chicago Tribune reports on allegations made by high school students, that they were coerced to practice TM  

Updates to this story, Williams v. Board of Education

The plaintiffs, who also include an advocacy group and an association of local churches, asserted that they were deprived of their rights by the DLF, the public school system and the University of Chicago, by violating the establishment and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The suit seeks redress in the form of an immediate restraining order against these three institutions, and various injunctions against the teaching of TM in Chicago public schools. The broadest of these requests is for “a declaratory judgment that facilitating, establishing, implementing, or reimplementing the “Quiet Time” program, or any other program involving the practice of “Transcendental Meditation,” within or through any CPS school violates the United States Constitution.” Finally, the suit seeks to obtain “compensatory damages for the mental anguish and emotional distress suffered in connection with the constitutional deprivations suffered at the hands of the named Defendants.”

More on TM in Chicago schools: Allegations of coercion, inducements and "bribe rewards"

As reported on here at the TM-Free Blog a few days ago, on July 26 (2019) the Chicago Tribune reported on the appearance of a Chicago high school student and teacher at a Board of Education meeting, objecting to an ongoing program by the David Lynch Foundation (DLF) and the University of Chicago that introduced Transcendental Meditation (TM) into Bogan High School.  Shortly after their appearance before the Board of Education, that student, along with another recent graduate of the school, and a parent spoke of even more disturbing experiences with school teachers, personnel, and meditation teachers who were part of the TM program in their high school, in two Facebook videos.

Read the original story here at the TM-Free Blog:
Chicago Tribune reports on allegations made by high school students, that they were coerced to practice TM  

The Chicago Board of Education hearing was recorded, and the testimony of the student and teacher, which were described in the Tribune article, can be viewed directly on YouTube. They raised objections before the Board, to the obvious religious content of the “puja” ritual, which is central to the instruction of Transcendental Meditation - which, according to a 40 year old Federal appeals court ruling, disqualifies such programs from being offered in public schools. Dasia Skinner, the teacher and school employee, told the Board that 60 students that she spoke with all had similar accounts of having gone through the “secret” puja ritual. “All of this was done without parents’ knowledge or the students’ understanding,” she said, and that students were told, “whatever happens in this room, stays in this room.” They both alleged that students were coerced to join and continue with the program, and were disciplined if they did not comply. 

TM in Chicago schools: Letter to the Chicago Tribune editor

This is a letter, thus far unpublished, that I submitted to the editor of the Chicago Tribune as a followup to their story reporting the allegations that have been addressed to the Chicago Board of Education about the so-called "Quiet Time" program - actually, the Transcendental Meditation program - implemented in Chicago public high schools by the David Lynch Foundation and the University of Chicago.

(More: "Chicago Tribune reports on allegations of high school students coerced to practice TM," August 10, 2019, here at the TM-Free Blog)

The point of this letter is to make it clear, that the aim of the David Lynch Foundation in introducing TM into schools is not merely some innocuous effort, allegedly directed at some of this country's most disadvantaged schools and students,  to improve young people's lives. It is instead, part of a means to implement a baldly religious agenda, of a group that at its core is obviously a religious sect, to remake the world into what they call, "Heaven on Earth." They seek to achieve this outcome by getting as many people as possible to practice a very specific form of meditation that will, as if by magic, transform the planet from a state of relative chaos to their concept of an orderly "peace." 

This agenda is even part of the full name of the David Lynch Foundation, the rest of its name being, "for consciousness-based education and world peace." Both those aspects, explanations of which were purged some years ago from the Foundation's website, are religious concepts that are drawn from the Vedic scriptures of India and sanitized of explicitly religious content for a receptive Western audience, that has often been deliberately misled by the implied falsehood that there's some broad consensus in the scientific community in support of this practice.  The religiosity of the "puja" ritual integral to the teaching of TM, and the mantras having associations with Vedic/Hindu deities, are details that are simply the tip of the iceberg, when the grandiose "let's take over the world" aspects of the TM movement - that are not well known or obvious to outsiders - are considered.

Chicago Tribune reports on allegations made by high school students, that they were coerced to practice TM

See also, here at the TM-Free Blog: 

• TM in Chicago schools: Letter to the Chicago Tribune editor, August 12, 2019

• More on TM in Chicago schools: Allegations of coercion, inducements and "bribe rewards," August 15, 2019

Recently, the Chicago Board of Education heard rather disturbing testimony from a substitute teacher and a student at one of the schools in which the so-called “Quiet Time” program was active during the past school year. “Quiet Time” is a euphemistic name that the David Lynch Foundation (DLF) uses to describe their Transcendental Meditation (TM) program that they have sought to establish in secondary schools in a number of countries, including public high schools in the United States. The DLF offers what it calls scientific evidence that such a program is beneficial to students, despite reviews and other research that indicate that, for many if not most people, such benefits are elusive to nonexistent, and that meditation may be detrimental for some individuals.

In this instance, the program was implemented by TM teachers and others working for the DLF in several Chicago high schools, including the school that was the source of these objections, Bogan Computer Technical High School. According to a 2015 University press release and web page, the David Lynch Foundation was paid $300,000 by the University of Chicago’s Urban Labs department to initiate this program in several Chicago public high schools, as part of what is claimed to be a scientific research study. The program is being supervised under the direction of several University of Chicago Urban Labs personnel. Students in the program are to meditate twice daily at the beginning and end of the school day, devoting at least part of two class periods that would otherwise be spent receiving instruction or doing other academic work, to meditation.

Along with the same allegation that was raised over forty years ago in US Federal courts - that students were required to participate in a religious ritual, in a public school, if they were to learn TM, and that once resulted in a permanent injunction against the teaching of TM in public schools - the Board heard that students were pressured into joining the program, and were subject to disciplinary action, including the dropping of grades, if they did not comply. Of course, all such tactics involving discipline or coercion of meditators in what has been promoted as a research study, would completely invalidate any claim to scientific legitimacy of any attempted published research on the benefits of meditation that may later result.