In New York, a group of yeshivas and two organizations have sued challenging the state Board of Regents recently adopted guidelines implementing NY Education Law §3204(2) which requires instruction in nonpublic schools to be at least "substantially equivalent" to that in public schools in the same city or district. The complaint (full text) in In re Parents for Educational and Religious Liberty in Schools, (Albany County Sup. Ct., filed 10/9/2022), alleges in part:
... [T]he New York State Education Department... has spent the last half decade seeking to impose greater requirements and heightened oversight on these schools than are imposed on other schools in New York, whether public or private....
First, the New Regulations violate the New York State Administrative Procedures Act ... because the public comment process was a sham.... Here, NYSED received more than 300,000 comments in opposition to the proposed regulations but did not truly consider them and did not make any substantive revisions....
Second, the New Regulations violate SAPA by imposing on yeshivas obligations and restrictions not found in other schools. Only yeshivas ... will be prohibited from offering instruction ... in a student’s home language....
Third, the New Regulations create an impermissible de facto licensing requirement through the review and determination process....
The New Regulations frustrate the Petitioners’ constitutionally protected rights to the free exercise of religion and free speech, and violate their due process rights and right to equal protection.
