CAPEEM: CA textbook lawsuit: Update

sep 12th, 2008

reposting this with an expiry date of 17th sep, because i'd like to request that all of the readers of this blog -- including, yes, you, the christist fundamentalists -- send money to CAPEEM :-) that is a pretty good test of how much you care about your indian identity.

i am putting my money where my mouth is and sending them a non-trivial amount. please follow suit.

sep 6th, 2008

CAPEEM has made terrific progress in the face of tremendous opposition from bigots like witzel. they need some money from us now to keep up the good work. please donate generously.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <arvind@capeem.org>
Date: Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 9:43 PM
Subject: CA textbook lawsuit: Update
To:

Dear Friend,

Last month, the Discovery phase came to an end in CAPEEM's lawsuit against the officials of the California Department of Education (CDE) and members of the State Board of Education (SBE) and we thought this would be a good time to give you an update on the status of the case.

As you may recall, we first filed the lawsuit in March 2006 pointing out that SBE had adopted textbooks that not only indoctrinated children with Abrahamic religions but also disparaged Hinduism. In addition, CDE had used hostile advisers to advice them on Hinduism had discriminated against Hindus during the adoption process. The complaint was filed by Venkat Balasubramani, a Seattle based attorney, and Mike Newdow, a Sacramento based attorney, joined our legal team in late 2007.

Within a few months of filing our complaint, we had to overcome two motions to dismiss our lawsuit. The Discovery Process began towards the end of 2006 after the court ruled in our favor on the second motion. We served a number of subpoenas to various parties including textbook publishers, Hotmail, Dalit Freedom Network, Michael Witzel, Stanley Wolpert, Charles Munger, Dalit Solidarity Forum operating out of St. Alban's Church in New Jersey, and also sought documents from the officials of CDE and SBE.

The subpoenas and discovery requests resulted in us obtaining over 25,000 pages of documents. While we obtained several incriminating documents, we had to file a motion to compel Michael Witzel to part with documents he withheld. Witzel handed over many documents before the scheduled hearing in court, but we did not obtain his communications with third parties unrelated to the dispute as the judge stated that they were not necessary for us to make our case.

We appealed this ruling, and in July this year, the appeals court reaffirmed the decision of the lower court and stated that we had already been given most of what we had asked for. However, Witzel turned over some more documents including an email uncovering the fact that the CDE had conducted a secret meeting that was previously unheard of. This meeting with anti-Hindu groups was in addition to the secret meeting that CDE had conducted with Witzel and others.

Among the documents that we received from other sources, we found extensive links between churches and key people involved in the adoption process. The counsel for CDE was in touch with her pastor and other emails showed that the CDE staff acted to assign arbitrary dates to biblical events. Curriculum Commissioner Charles Munger reported his victory to a member of his religious group and also gave detailed instructions to the counsel of CDE on how to handle questions regarding the description of the crucifixion of Jesus.

We also uncovered a link between Michael Witzel and Dalit Freedom Network (DFN), a group that operates out of a church in Colorado. Witzel coordinated his campaign with DFN and planned in advance the details of what would be spoken at meetings. Witzel also sent an email alerting DFN to the description of their organization on Wikipedia and stated that whenever he erased the description, it kept coming back. An office bearer of DFN followed up on this email by saying that she did not want to "start being identified as a missions organization" and wanted to know if they could edit it themselves.

In March this year, we informed you that the court had rejected the defendants' motion to dismiss the case. In that motion, the defendants had alleged that we had the same interests as the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) and were in privity with them. We argued that we represented different interests and that the nature of our lawsuit was different from the HAF lawsuit.

After we sent you that message, there has been a tremendous amount of activity in the lawsuit. The defendants filed a motion to reconsider the judgment and the judge once again ruled in our favor saying that the defendants had merely rehashed their arguments.

In the past few weeks, we conducted a number of depositions. Among those whom we deposed were CDE staff member Tom Adams, former Chair of SBE Ruth Green, Curriculum Commissioner Charles Munger, Michael Witzel and other staff members of CDE. We also obtained a signed statement from CDE's expert Stanley Wolpert. After carefully reviewing the data in our possession, we decided not to depose James Heitzman as we determined that despite his bias, he was not that important and we would gain nothing new from deposing him. Moreover, the defendants' attorneys agreed to let us use documents related to Heitzman as evidence without additional identification from him.

On our side, a director of CAPEEM and two parents whose names we submitted as representative parents were deposed. The defendants also deposed their own expert Prof. Shiva Bajpai.

Finally, we filed a motion to compel the defendants to hand over a few more documents that were withheld. We withdrew the motion after they agreed to give us the documents we sought from them.

The resource intensive Discovery Process came to an end a few days ago and it would not have been possible for us to successfully complete this phase without your support. Last year at this time, we were short of funds and appealed to you for your support after putting the case on hold and entering into settlement talks.

This week, as the case enters the next phase, we will put forward the names of our experts and turn in their reports. Although the Discovery phase was the most expensive part of the lawsuit, the remaining part of the lawsuit will also use up substantial resources. We look forward to your renewed support and hope you will donate liberally and help make this case a success.

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. If you do not wish to receive updates from CAPEEM, please reply to this email with the word 'unsubscribe' in the subject line.