CA textbooks lawsuit: Appeal

dec 26th, 2008

please donate generously. i have given what i can afford to. this effort is reaching a point of critical mass, and it is worth supporting it wholeheartedly.

since many of you may be considering year-end tax-deduction donations, this is one good avenue. as you can see, these guys are actually getting somewhere with this lawsuit, and the fallout from winning this one can be quite large -- various sepoys and anti-hindu bigots would feel the heat on their ample bottoms.

i am going to leave this up on top of this blog for the next week or two to emphasize the point -- please donate. help this very fine cause.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <arvind@capeem.org>
Date: Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 11:32 PM
Subject: CA textbooks lawsuit: Appeal
To:

Dear Friend,

As we approach the end of the year, CAPEEM would like to appeal to your generosity and seek funds for the next phase of its lawsuit.

On December 12, the Expert Discovery phase came to an end in our lawsuit against the officials of the California Department of Education (CDE) and members of the State Board of Education (SBE).

During this phase that began in September this year, both CAPEEM and the Defendants presented expert statements. Prof. Joe Barnhart, an authority on Christianity, and Prof. Nathan Katz, an expert in religious studies, provided statements on behalf of CAPEEM. The Defendants provided statements from Luis Gonzalez-Reimann and Dr. Herbert Weissman who is a psychologist. Prof. Shiva Bajpai whose Historical Atlas of South Asia is the standard reference book on the history of the Indian subcontinent and Dr. Marlene Winell who is the author of Leaving the Fold submitted rebuttals to Gonzalez-Reimann and Dr. Weissman respectively.

While Prof. Barnhart's statement questioned the historicity of several biblical claims made in the textbook, Prof. Katz's report focused on castes among people in India who were not Hindus. Although Gonzalez-Reimann was the Defendants' expert, his report agreed with CAPEEM's claims on some points and he pointed out that the usage of the word 'Christ' in history books would amount to religious indoctrination. It must be noted that Romila Thapar, one of the opponents of our efforts to remove biblical indoctrination from textbooks, uses the word 'Christ' instead of the name Jesus in her book, and Gonzalez-Riemann's report can be seen as an attack on Romila Thapar's belief in the historicity of Jesus. Gonzalez-Reimann has also been used as an expert on DNA analysis, archaeology, Christian indoctrination and other topics despite having no qualification in these fields. He has challenged the findings of scientists published in leading journals in the field of genetics. Gonzalez-Reimann's description of Hinduism in his report also shows that his understanding of the topic is superficial.

During the Expert Discovery phase, Defendants filed two motions against us and took the deposition of Prof. Bajpai causing tremendous strain to our resources. At this point, we have completed most of the work related to technical issues, and the next few weeks should see summary judgment motions being filed by both sides. After the ruling on these motions, the case will go to trial.

The intensity of the process has drained us of our resources and we urgently require money to sustain our efforts in the coming weeks. While it is almost certain that the Defendants will file a motion for summary judgment, our decision to file such a pre-trial motion will depend on our ability to quickly raise sufficient money for the motion.

We hope that you will consider making a donation to CAPEEM so that we can not only fight off the motion that the Defendants are certain to file, but also have the resources to file our own summary judgment motion.

You can donate to CAPEEM by writing a check in favor of CAPEEM and mailing it to

CAPEEM
PO Box 280442
Northridge, CA 91328

You can also donate online by going to http://www.capeem.org and clicking on the link to donate. CAPEEM is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization with tax ID 56-2565521.

Thank you,
Arvind Kumar
Director, California Parents for the Equalization of Educational Materials
arvind@capeem.org
(646) 594-4397

CAPEEM's is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization with tax ID 56-2565521.