A class action lawsuit was filed in Kings County Supreme Court on Thursday to reverse New York state’s refusal to uphold education standards for Hasidic and Haredi yeshivas.
Education policy attorney Michael Rebell, together with Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP and the Youth Advocacy and Policy Lab at Harvard Law School, said they are suing the state on behalf of the approximately 100,000 Hasidic and Haredi students who are being denied access to meaningful educational opportunities in their nonpublic schools known as yeshivas.
The lawsuit, which lists the defendants as Governor Kathy Hochul, state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, contends that when the state neutered what is called substantial equivalency, or regulations that ensure students attending religious and independent schools across New York State have access to an education that is substantially equivalent to students attending public schools, the state failed its constitutional duty to ensure that all children receive the opportunity for a sound, basic education.
“This is a defining moment for education in New York,” said Rebell, the lead counsel and professor of Law and Educational Practice Emeritus at Teachers College, Columbia University. “The Constitution requires that the state ensure all children — including those in nonpublic religious schools — are provided the opportunity for a sound, basic education."
New York’s highest court has emphasized that all students in the state need to receive such an education in order to function productively as capable citizens, he said.
"It is outrageous that the governor and state legislative leaders have now absolved these schools from teaching basic American history, civics, science and other subjects to tens of thousands of students," Rebell said. "We are going to court to try to stop them from doing that.”
There have been multiple lawsuits filed for and against providing secular education at yeshivas over the past several years. It was been reported that the Hasidic community suffers from disproportionately high poverty levels and limited English proficiency rates. A recent report found that 63% of the Hasidic community lives below or near the poverty line, that the median income for Hasidic men is 30% less than non-Hasidic men, and that as much as 13% of Hasidic male youth speak no English whatsoever.
Young Advocates for Fair Education, a group that advocates for secular education at yeshivas, said no one should accept the state skirting its own law to educate students.
“Every child has the right to learn, but too many Hasidic and Haredi children are being denied an education because the state has refused to guarantee it,” said Adina Mermelstein Konikoff, executive director of YAFFED. “This lawsuit is about guaranteeing this right – and that means reversing the disastrous dismantling of substantial equivalency."
The governor's office did not respond to a request for comment on the matter.
