![](https://cdn.christianpost.com/images/cache/image/15/09/150958_w_760_428.jpg)
A former Chicago public high school student received $150,000 in a settlement last month after she sued over a transcendental meditation program that she said violated her constitutional rights.
Mariah Green, 21 years old, for follow-up the Chicago Board of Education in February over a Quiet Time program implemented in some urban public schools with help from the University of Chicago and the David Lynch Foundation, also named in the lawsuit.
The Chicago Board of Education and the David Lynch Foundation will each pay $75,000, according to the judgement handed down in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on October 23, his lawyers announced last week.
Green, a Christian, told The Christian Post that she transferred from a charter school to Bogan Public High School during the 2018-2019 school year to play basketball and volleyball.
Shortly afterward, she said she was required to participate in the Quiet Time program that implemented transcendental meditation and other practices that she believed violated her faith.
Transcendental meditation, also known as “TM”, was founded in India in the 1950s by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a Hindu whose program has been described as both religious and non-religious. The movement exploded in popularity around the world in the 1960s and 1970s after being supported by celebrities such as the Beatles.
In 2015, the University of Chicago Crime Lab launched a multi-year study of Quiet Time, the David Lynch Foundation school program that implemented transcendental meditation, according to a 2016 study. article from Smithsonian magazine. The project, one of the largest randomized studies of meditation and children, involved 6,800 subjects in Chicago and New York and studied the practice’s effects on crime and violence, the magazine reported.
Green and his lawyers alleged to CP that the Quiet Time program expected students to chant a mantra and pay homage to Hindu deities in a “Puja” ceremony, which they claimed was inherently “demonic” in its nature. character, as well as a violation of Green’s rules. Christian Beliefs and Rights Under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
Green, who was a minor at the time, told CP that an instructor took students four or five at a time into a dark room that she described as “scary.” She remembers that the presence of candles and the image of a guru in front of an altar indicated to her “a bizarre scenario” that made her uncomfortable.
“It seemed like the image of some kind of idol that I knew I didn’t worship,” she recalls.
Green said she never learned the meaning of the mantra she was given, but noted she was told not to tell others, including her parents. She said the experience made her feel like “her religion was under attack,” which caused her to “go into prayer mode” and ask members of her church to pray for her for spiritual protection.
“You never know what the purpose of the meditation was, how they wanted me to do it,” she said.
![](https://cdn.christianpost.com/images/cache/image/15/09/150959_w_760_428.jpg)
John Mauck, a lawyer who represented Green, told CP that one of the Quiet Time practices consisted of “a three- or four-minute Sanskrit chant that is, in our opinion, a demonic conjuring of Hindu deities.”
He said other religious clients had filed a lawsuit against Quiet Time for similar reasons, as they were asked to “give some sort of obedience” to the guru’s image, such as kneeling before it or offer him an orange.
Green said she was told kneeling in front of the image would enhance her meditation experience, but she avoided having to do so by saying she had an injury.
Green also claimed that she was threatened with losing points on her participation grade if she refused to participate in the meditation program, which she said threatened to impinge on her ability to play the sports for which she had been transferred to school in the first place.
She further claimed that she was never given a parental consent form and that her family did not approve of what was expected of her when she spoke to them about it.
Bill Goldstein, an attorney who represented the David Lynch Foundation in the lawsuit, stressed to CP that the settlement in favor of Green does not prove any of his allegations and that the settlement should not be “construed as an admission of liability, or that any damage was actually suffered by her. »
“These are unproven allegations,” Goldstein told CP. “And that information was withheld, and the court never found it to be accurate. The settlement was reached in the interest of judicial economy and to put an end to it without everyone spending a lot of time and money in dispute.”
Goldstein denied Green’s claims that she was forced into the program or suffered academic and athletic retaliation and claimed that she received consent from her parents to participate.
CPS, which ended the Quiet Time program in 2020, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CP, but said in a statement statement to Chalkboard News that the district “is committed to the safety and well-being of our students and works with external partners to implement various programs and strategies to promote student mental health and ensure well-being social and emotional.
“One of the programs used by CPS was Quiet Time – a meditation-based social-emotional learning tool designed by the David Lynch Foundation, which develops programs to serve populations experiencing violence and trauma,” a continued the CPS spokesperson.
“The District has consistently denied, and continues to deny, any liability as a result of Quiet Time, and no judge or jury has found liability in this matter,” the spokesperson added.
Green, who is now training to become a police officer in Chicago, told CP that she “remained in prayer” over the situation at her school and hopes God will continue to use her to “spread the word.” Gospel and also to help people.” “.
“Weapons could form but they cannot prosper. There is no way, even if the devil intended to put something in my mind with a mantra, or whatever,” he said. -she declared. “But you know, we serve a different type of God, and He uses me all the time.”
Jon Brown is a journalist at the Christian Post. Send news tips to jon.brown@christianpost.com
Free Religious Freedom Updates
Join thousands of others to get the FREEDOM POST free newsletter, sent twice a week from The Christian Post.