The Chicago Public Schools and a New York-based organization that promotes transcendental meditation will pay a combined $2.6 million to hundreds of former CPS high school students and their lawyers to settle a class action lawsuit accusing CPS of forcing students to participate in Hindu meditation rites in violation of their religious rights.
On May 7, a Chicago federal judge granted final approval to the settlement deal between named plaintiff Kaya Hudgins and the Chicago Board of Education, together with the David Lynch Foundation.
Under the deal, CPS and the David Lynch Foundation will each pay $1.3 million.
John W. Mauck
| mauckbaker.com
Hudgins' attorneys from the firm of Mauck & Baker, of Chicago, and the Leahu Law Group, also of Chicago, will receive about $860,000 in fees from the settlement, after U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly also granted the lawyers' fee request, equal to about one-third of the funds paid out in the deal.
Hudgins would receive $100,000 directly as an "incentive award" for signing her name to the lawsuit.
Most of the remaining amount - about $1.6 million - will be divided up among 773 other former Chicago Public high school students included in the class action, about $2,100 each.
“This settlement vindicates the concerns of former students and parents that the initiation ceremony and daily meditation regime were effectively demonic invocation and thus violated the Establishment Clause of the Constitution,” said Hudgins' lead attorney John W. Mauck, in a statement announcing the settlement.
“We hope this settlement will deter those who exploit young people and that it will encourage the Chicago Board of Education to be wary of harming students by allowing wolves to prey on the sheep they are obligated to protect.”
The settlement brings to a close legal actions lodged against CPS in 2023 over its so-called "Quiet Time" meditation program.
The lawsuits asserted CPS pressured students into participating in the religious programming, in violation of their First Amendment religious freedom rights.
Deployed in partnership with the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace, the program was rolled out from 2015-2019 in eight Chicago public high schools, including Bogan High School, where Hudgins attended.
The Foundation, with offices in New York, Los Angeles and Fairfield, Iowa, has built a reputation over years for promoting the practices of transcendental meditation, boosted by testimonials from prominent Hollywood celebrities, including Martin Scorsese, Jerry Seinfeld and Ellen Degeneres, among others.
According to court documents, the program invited students to participate in two 15-minute meditation sessions per school day.
However, according to lawsuits filed by Hudgins and others, the sessions were not truly voluntary, as students were allegedly instructed by CPS teachers to participate in the sessions and sign consent and non-disclosure agreements. Then, they were allegedly told by representatives of the Foundation to conceal their participation in the meditation sessions from their parents, particularly if their parents "were religious."
According to court documents, students allegedly were rewarded with pizza for promoting the meditation sessions, and at least one was offered money to participate in the sessions.
According to Hudgins' complaint, she was told non-participation in the program would negatively affect her grades and her academic record.
While students were told the meditation practices were not religious in nature, Hudgins said her research later revealed the mantras she and other students were instructed to chant while meditating were actually reciting the names of Hindu gods.
Hudgins noted the school had made time for such apparently Hindu religious practices, she, as a Muslim, was not given time and space to pray five times each day, as Islam requires its adherents to do.
Hudgins, who is now 22, was 16 years old at the time she was allegedly forced to participate in the "Quiet Time" sessions.
“I was just a teenager when I was pressured into a program I didn’t understand and wasn’t allowed to question,” Hudgins said in the release announcing the settlement.
"No student should ever be forced into a religious practice against their will - especially not in a public school. This settlement is a step toward accountability and a reminder that our constitutional rights don’t stop at the classroom door.”
Hudgins was not the only student to pursue such an action against CPS. Her fellow former CPS students, including Mariyah Green and Amontae Williams, also sued CPS. According to court records, both students said the Quiet Time program, foisted by the school district, violated their religious freedoms by all but compelling them to participate in Hindu religious practices.
Both students have reached individual settlements and received payment from CPS and the Foundation. According to a statement from the Mauck & Baker firm, Green received $150,000 through her settlement.
Williams' settlement has not been disclosed in court documents.
Despite attempts by CPS and the Lynch Foundation to toss the suit, Kennelly in the spring of 2024 allowed Hudgins to proceed with her lawsuit as a class action.
In that decision, Kennelly said he believed Hudgins had presented enough evidence to back her claims that CPS may have violated the so-called Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which forbids the government from promoting a particular religion.
In this instance, Kennelly said he believed CPS' promotion of the meditation program could amount to coercion of students to participate in Hindu religious practices.
While CPS and the Lynch Foundation argued a class action wouldn't be appropriate, because not all students were forced to participate against their will, Kennelly said he did not believe the differences among the student plaintiffs was enough to justify rejecting Hudgins' request for a class action.
At one time, court documents indicated the plaintiffs' class could include as many as 2,000-3,000 former CPS high school students.
However, the class ultimately included 773 in the settlement.
Hudgins has been represented by attorneys Mauck and Judith A. Kott, of the Mauck & Baker firm; and Sorin A. Leahu, of the Leahu Law Group, of Chicago.
The Chicago Board of Education and CPS has been represented by their in-house attorneys, Kaitlin T. Salisbury and Christina L. Rosenberg; and attorneys Tiffany S. Fordyce, David J. Stein, Naomi I. Lazar and Tyler L. Salway, of the firm of Greenberg Traurig, of Chicago.
The David Lynch Foundation has been represented by attorneys James J. Sipchen, of Pretzel & Stouffer, of Chicago; and Mark L. Zaiger, of Shuttleworth & Ingersoll, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.