The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit concluded Thursday that the California State Board of Education’s 2016 guidelines did not discriminate against Hinduism. The appellate court affirmed a February 2019  decision of Judge Charles Breyer of the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

California Parents for the Equalization of Educational Materials (CAPEEM), a group dedicated to the accurate portrayal of Hinduism in schools, had filed the original complaint against individuals like Tom Torlakson, the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, in 2017. The complaint alleged that California’s 2016 state education guidelines unfavorably compared Hinduism to Western religions including Christianity, thereby violating the Equal Protection Clause and the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

The circuit court discussed the provisions of the guidelines challenged by CAPEEM at length. The group asserted that the guidelines did not require schools to cover the origins or texts of Hinduism, but did for other dominant world religions. CAPEEM also took issue with the references within the guidelines to a discredited theory that Aryan invasions into India led to the creation of Hinduism.

From there, the circuit court analyzed all of the group’s previously dismissed legal complaints. As to the group’s Equal Protection claim, the court stated that “a dislike of challenged content does not constitute a constitutional violation of Equal Protection.” The court also expressed that the remaining claims had been properly dismissed because the guidelines did not penalize the exercise of any religion, nor did they imply hostility toward any particular religion.

The appellate court concluded by saying:

We agree with the district court that the challenged content of the Standards and Framework, and process leading up to the Framework’s adoption, did not disparage or otherwise express hostility to Hinduism in violation of the Constitution.