Quick decision uphold school board closure

Lawsuit tossed

By Michael Orbach

Five parents who wanted to block the closure of the Number Six School filed suit claiming that shuttering the school in Cedarhurst would violate their children’s constitutional rights. In August 2009 a federal judge ruled in favor of the district. A three-judge appellate panel heard the parents’ appeal in May, and three weeks later issued a verdict that upheld the ruling.

“We’re satisfied that the appellate court sought so expeditiously to uphold [the] decision,” said District 15 school board president Murray Forman. “We hope this puts an end to an unfortunate chapter in the district’s history.”

By closing the school, the parents claimed, the school board had violated their children’s rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. A future sale of the school, the parents alleged, would serve to benefit the Orthodox population.

The three-judge panel ruled that the closing of the school was not a violation of the Establishment Clause and that the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate “adverse treatment of individuals compared with other similarly situated individuals.”

Setting tax levels is a function of secular government, the decision explained, and that “the question frequently generates spirited debate, often informed by a range of self-interests, but the First Amendment does not exclude any interest from public debate simply because it is informed by religion.”

Furthermore, the judges found, the “plaintiffs fail plausibly to allege that the plan entangles the government with religion.”

Last August, United States District Judge Johanna Seybert handed down a harsh 37-page opinion that called the lawsuit “frivolous” and “irrelevant.”

“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,” Justice Seybert wrote.

Given the strength and detail of that original decision, Forman said, he does not expect the parents to file a further appeal.

“Quite frankly, I was surprised that they actually spent money or wanted to go through with this,” Forman said. “But this is America. Anyone can sue anyone.”

A past school board candidate, Andrew Levey, one of the parents who brought the lawsuit, did not respond to a request for comment before The Jewish Star’s press deadline.

The school board is bringing a legal action against the parents to recoup the more than $100,000 cost of defending the lawsuit; the board expects a ruling within the next three months.