"Teaching, after all, is speech. Pure and simple," Clark M. Nelly

Hi,

I thought this would be of interest:
Snip: "Teaching, after all, is speech. Pure and simple," said Clark M. Neily, a lawyer with the Institute For Justice, an Arlington-based libertarian public-interest law firm handling the case.
Un-Snip

FYI - They wanted to pull this crap in NYC several months ago and they got so many protests and challenges that it made their heads spin and they backed off--

Articles are below--

Warmest regards,

Michael E.



Va. Instructors: Yoga Regulations Unconstitutional

Tuesday December 1, 2009
ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Three Virginia yoga instructors aren't feeling so Zen about a state plan to regulate and license would-be teachers of the ancient discipline.

The instructors say they plan to file a federal lawsuit in Alexandria on Tuesday claiming the plan infringes on their free speech rights.

They say entrepreneurs would have to ask the government's permission before they open their mouths or face fines and jail time. And they say complying is costly and time consuming.

The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia wants to certify yoga teacher training as it does the teaching of dog groomers, dancing instructors and bartenders. It says certification will make sure students get their money's worth.

Several other states have attempted to regulate yoga instructor programs this year.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


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http://mddailyrecord.com/2009/12/02/va-instructors-yoga-regulations...

The Daily Record-

Va. instructors: Yoga regulations unconstitutional

POSTED: 5:06 PM WED, DECEMBER 2, 2009
BY ASSOCIATED PRESS


Suzanne Leitner-Wise, left, and Bev Brown, both of Alexandria, Va., pose for a portrait in the Little River Yoga Studio where they teach yoga instructors, in Alexandria, Va.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The state of Virginia wants to make sure that if you learn to be a yoga instructor, the people who teach you the Half Moon, the Sleeping Vishnu and the Upward Facing Dog poses know what they’re doing.

But three yoga instructors filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Virginia regulators, claiming that the state’s plan to license yoga teacher-training programs is an unconstitutional restriction of free speech.

“It’s just daft. It’s just a ridiculous idea,” said Suzanne Leitner-Wise, one of the plaintiffs and a yoga instructor who has provided training to U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. “It’s the students who determine whether you’re a competent teacher,” not the state.

The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, a regulatory body, had planned to impose licensure requirements on yoga teacher-training programs by the end of the year, but has agreed to wait a few months at the request of state legislators.

The council does not want to regulate all yoga teaching, but says it has a duty to regulate the training of teachers.

“We consider it a student-protection measure,” said Kirsten Nelson, SCHEV’s spokeswoman.

She said state law requires the council to regulate vocational education programs, and that includes programs that train yoga teachers. And she emphasized that the state has no interest in regulating yoga classes themselves, only programs that train people to become an instructor.

The state council says it is required by law to regulate any vocational training: as a result, bartending schools, massage therapy schools and even programs on how to shoe horses have received state licenses in recent years, as have several yoga studios.

But other yogis have fought back, and Virginia is not the only state confronting the issue. In New York, education officials earlier this year dropped plans to require yogis to have licenses before they can train new teachers in the face of protests. Michigan also this year began working to license schools that teach future yoga instructors.

In Virginia, Leitner-Wise says the licensure program requires a $2,500 application fee, annual renewals of at least $500 and loads of paperwork, none of which is necessary.

The yoga instructors are represented by attorneys from the Institute for Justice, a libertarian law firm. Attorney Robert Frommer said the state has no business determining what kinds of training programs are acceptable.

“The Virginia bureaucrats who will pass judgment on these instructors have no expertise whatsoever in yoga,” said Frommer, adding that there is significant debate within the yoga community about what is considered proper technique and philosophy.

More broadly, Frommer said that teaching is a form of free speech. And if the state wants to regulate free speech, it needs a compelling reason to do so. Keeping tabs on the development of new yogis and gurus does not meet the bar, he said.

Nelson said the licensure requirements mostly involve mundane, content-neutral issues revolving around development of a solid business model and posting a bond that enables students to be reimbursed if a program goes defunct.

For issues concerning the quality of the yoga instruction, SCHEV relies on standards developed by an industry body, the Yoga Alliance.

R. Mark Davis, president and CEO of the Arlington-based Yoga Alliance, said more than a dozen states are regulating yoga teacher-training; many of those states incorporate the alliance’s standards.

He said the alliance’s goal was to establish a form of self regulation and takes no position on whether states ought to issue licenses, but he said in other states most practitioners report no problems. The biggest problem in Virginia, he said is the $2,500 upfront fee is exorbitant for small studios that only have a few students.

The Virginia lawsuit asks for an injunction barring state regulators from applying the licensing requirements to yoga teacher academies.

Meanwhile, Virginia Del. David Bulova, D-Fairfax, said he expects to introduce legislation that would either exempt yoga studios from the regulations or provide some other type of relief.

“I have not seen a compelling reason so far for why we should go ahead and add this burden on yoga studios, especially in this economy,” Bulova said.

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Va. yoga instructors sue state on plan to regulate training
Instructors sue over state's move to certify training classes
By Maria Glod
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Virginia yogis are taking the state to the mat.

Three yoga instructors on Tuesday asked a federal judge to halt a state plan to regulate yoga instructor training. The Old Dominion, they say, has stretched too far into an ancient, spiritual practice.

"Yoga is the study of the self through direct experience," Suzanne Leitner-Wise, a plaintiff and president of U.S. 1 Yoga Teacher Training said outside federal court in Alexandria, where the lawsuit was filed. "You simply can't put regulations on that. It's just dumb."



Yoga enthusiasts were knocked off balance late last year when Virginia announced that yoga teacher training programs, which officials consider vocational classes that prepare students for a job, must be certified by the state. Officials say it will protect students who invest a few thousand dollars in the training.

But the teachers, who between them have more than four decades of experience practicing yoga (Leitner-Wise was Virginia Sen. Mark Warner's former private yoga instructor), say passing on the tradition to other teachers is tantamount to constitutionally protected free speech.

"Teaching, after all, is speech. Pure and simple," said Clark M. Neily, a lawyer with the Institute For Justice, an Arlington-based libertarian public-interest law firm handling the case.

The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia requires certification of all sorts of vocational training programs, including bartending schools, dog-grooming schools and the Ballroom Dance Teachers Academy. Certification requires a $2,500 fee, audits, annual charges of at least $500 and paperwork.

Yoga teacher training had long fallen below the council's radar. Then, late last year, a state employee conducting school audits noticed an advertisement for it.

Kirsten Nelson, a spokeswoman for the council, said officials haven't received the lawsuit. But she said the council maintains that certification is the right thing to do.

"We really think this is important for the protection of the students," Nelson said. "Their investment needs to be protected, and their safety needs to be protected."

As stressed-out professionals and others increasingly propel yoga into the mainstream, similar tussles have played out across the country. In New York, the state education department in June sent a letter to yoga instructor training programs saying that unlicensed schools faced a $50,000 fine. The state backed down after an outcry by instructors.

Jamin B. Raskin, a professor of constitutional law at American University and a Maryland state senator, said it will not be easy for the court to balance two competing interests.


"It's an extremely close and subtle case," Raskin said. "On one side, the state has traditionally regulated training programs. On the other side, people certainly do have a right to engage in private educational speech activities, like tutoring, without state interference."

Radka Dopitova, a student in U.S. 1 Yoga Teacher Training, said she signed on after a decade of practicing yoga, and the skills she is learning will help in her work as a personal fitness trainer. She worries that the studios will either shut down such programs because of the certification cost and paperwork, or raise student fees.

"With the amount of stress there is in D.C., I think we are going to need more yoga teachers, not less," Dopitova said. "Look how people live? It's stress, stress. Rushing, rushing."

No matter how the court case plays out, the state would not begin enforcement until at least March. Virginia Del. David Bulova (D-Fairfax), who said he expects that lawmakers will take up a bill to exempt yoga teacher training from the certification, has asked the council to hold off until the General Assembly weighs in.

Bulova said he's not flexible enough for yoga, but his wife enjoys it. He said he's not convinced that there has been a problem with yoga instructor training, and he worries the regulations would be too great a burden for small studios that rely on income from the months-long teacher training programs to stay afloat.

"I have a lot of constituents who use yoga studios and, by and large, most are mom-and-pop small businesses that are really just trying to squeeze by," Bulova said. "Especially in this economy, you don't regulate unless you have a defined problem."

Yoga instructors say many devotees enroll in instructor training to expand their knowledge. Many see teaching yoga as a quest for enlightenment, not a way to pay the bills.

"It has been passed down for thousands of years by sages to their students," said Beverly Brown, a plaintiff. "To me, teaching yoga is a statement of my purpose, or dharma."

For more on Education, please see http://washingtonpost.com/education



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