Court Rejects Collateral Estoppel In Suit On Portrayal of Hindus In Textbooks

In California Parents for the Equalization of Educational Materials v. California Department of Education, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23687 (ED CA, March 25, 2008), plaintiff (CAPEEM) alleges that the California State Board of Education violated the rights of its members by the process used in 2005-2006 to adopt public school history-social science textbooks. It also claims the 6th-grade textbooks that were chosen present Hinduism in a derogatory and unequal manner. In this decision, a California federal district court rejected defendant's motion for summary judgment. The State Board of Education argued that the identical claims were already adjudicated in a state court suit brought by the Hindu American Foundation (HAF). The district court held, however, that CAPEEM is not in privity with HAF for res judicata/collateral estoppel purposes, nor was its interests adequately represented in the state litigation to which it was not a party. (See prior related posting.)