“Irrelevant,” “Nonsensical,” “Frivolous”; Judge throws out Lawrence School lawsuit
By Michael Orbach
Issue of August 28, 2009 / 8 Elul 5769
Using the harshest possible language, a Federal judge has thrown out a civil rights
lawsuit brought by parents in the Lawrence School District who sought an injunction to block the shuttering of the Number Six School.
“Nothing Plaintiffs have pled remotely resembles any violations of the First or Fourteenth Amendment — except, ironically, for Plaintiffs’ requested relief, which itself violates the First and Fourteenth Amendment,” wrote United States District Judge Joanna Seybert.
The lawsuit, originally reported by the Jewish Star in July, claimed that the consolidation plan that would close the Number Six School and bring the district’s fifth graders to the middle school was done primarily to “advance the Orthodox religion.” The lawsuit also claimed a wide-ranging Orthodox conspiracy that entailed de-facto recognition of “Orthodox Judaism” as the official religion of the Lawrence schools.
Judge Seybert’s 38-page decision varied in tone from irritation to outrage; she did not mince words about her opinion of the lawsuit. Nearly all of the claims put forth in the lawsuit, in Seybert’s words, were “frivolous” and “nonsensical;” even “blatantly undemocratic.” The word “irrelevant” appears six times in little more than a single page.
“Plaintiffs make no factual allegations suggesting that ‘Orthodox shuls’ somehow controlled the School Board, that the School Board provided public money to ‘shuls,’ that the School Board served as any kind of Jewish religious court or ruling body, or that the School Board imposed sectarian religious rules favored by Orthodox Judaism,” she wrote.
Read the judge's withering comments about the "frivolous" civil rights suit
The decision went on to state that the only possible violation was in the Plaintiff’s complaints, one of which was that the school closure would lower taxes, which in turn, would allow parents to pay for yeshiva tuition, and that would indirectly violate the First Amendment rights of parents in the Lawrence School district.
“Plaintiffs seek to deny Orthodox Jews political rights possessed by every other group in the United States: the right to mobilize in support of religiously neutral government policies, and then have those policies enacted through normal democratic processes,” the decision stated. Judge Seybert underlined some of her words when she wrote, “Indeed, by objecting to lower taxes because they might help some people afford yeshiva education, Plaintiffs’ Complaint, on its clear face, seeks to create, not cure, a First Amendment Equal Protections violation.”
The decision is a validation for the members of the School Board, the majority of whom are Orthodox. One footnote chastises the parents and their “apparent argument” that Orthodox parents should not be on the school board. “The idea that “Individual Defendants should not have run for elective office because they ‘have no investment in the public school system (aside from their tax investment) ... that does not include their own children’ is fundamentally undemocratic and improper.”
Members of the school board were pleased.
“We’re gratified with the decision,” said Board President Murray Forman. “We are particularly gratified that the judge, on her own, dismissed the case so that we did not have to expend any more district resources on what is proven to be a frivolous lawsuit.”
“After reading the decision, I thank G-d I’m an American,” said Asher Mansdorf, a board member.
Rob Agastisi, the lawyer for the parents, said he could not comment until he spoke with his clients.
“I believe that the court reviewed the facts, interpreted them correctly, applied them correctly, and came to a just result,” Said Al D'Agostino, the laywer for the school board.
In a bit of Orthodox Judaism 101, the court also disputed a number of minor points raised by the parents, complaining that the suit “appears to be based on popular stereotypes and misconceptions regarding Orthodox Judaism, not facts,” such as the notion that Orthodox Jews have “different wardrobes,” “grooming habits,” “large nuclear families” and that Orthodox Judaism interprets the Hebrew Bible “strict[ly].”
“Rather,” the decision explains like an informational video, Orthodox Judaism interprets the Hebrew Bible “in accord with the Talmud and later Rabbinic codifications.”
Disregarding the notion of an Orthodox conspiracy, the court wrote of the “indisputable truth that religious believers are not monolithic robots, but rather individuals who may think differently from each other” and noted the ideological differences between Orthodox Jews in public life, from Senator Joseph Lieberman, a Democrat who became an Independent, and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, a onetime federal judge who served in a Republican administration.
Regarding an item of evidence submitted by the plaintiffs, an advertisement for candidates in the school board election signed by twenty-three rabbis, Judge Seybert noted that, “even if 10,000 Rabbis endorsed the Consolidation Plan itself, such an endorsement by religion says nothing useful about whether the policy itself endorses religion. Like all Americans, clergy members have First Amendment rights. Thus, the Rev. Martin Luther King could rally against segregation without rendering integration unconstitutional. Catholic Priests can endorse restrictions on abortion. Mormon-affiliated organizations can campaign against gay marriage.”
The complaint would tend to serious endanger the First Amendment rights of clergy, the judge noted.
“Indeed there is at least the hint of something nefarious in Plaintiffs’ suggestion that a Rabbinic get-out-the-vote campaign renders an elected officials’ subsequently enacted policies Constitutionally suspect.”
The decision not only denied the parent’s request for an injunction to block the school closing but threw out the entire case.
“The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution guarantees Orthodox Jews equal protection of the law. This includes the right to run for public office and enact otherwise constitutional policies that have majority support. To deny Orthodox Jews these rights simply because, as Plaintiffs allege, Orthodox Jews have different opinions from Lawrence’s other residents would be to discriminate against Orthodox Jews because they are Orthodox Jews. Any such discrimination would be Constitutionally and morally repugnant.”
The Consolidation Plan, according to Judge Seybert, is not a religious decision but an economic one — a point that Seybert said the Plaintiffs’ own evidence pointed to.
Any decision by the court would likely exacerbate the “strife” that the Plaintiffs discuss, according to Seybert, by “discriminating against Lawrence’s Orthodox population, imposing an unjust and unprecedented suspension of democracy and imposing Plaintiffs’ wishes by judicial fiat.”
There is no magic bullet for the conflict between residents.
“Just as ‘strife’ does not go away when one side loses at the ballot box, it does not magically dissipate because a Court intervenes in a bitter ‘religious/political’ dispute.”
The decision concludes that the parents’ “true remedy” is “at the ballot box, not the federal court system.” The lawsuit itself not only is not entitled to a preliminary injunction, but “Plaintiffs have failed to even state a claim.”
