California public school children perfecting their “lotus position” — and their parents — need not worry about the future of yoga instruction in their physical education classes. As the 4th District Court of Appeal ruled earlier this month in Sedlock v. Baird, 235 Cal. App. 4th 874 (2015), yoga in the public schools does not infringe students’ religious freedom, because yoga is not a religious doctrine.
While this may have been the first case dealing with yoga in California schools, the court’s opinion employs common sense and long-established precedent in arriving at a simple conclusion: not every activity historically connected with religion is inherently religious such that it constitutes a governmental establishment of religion in violation of the First Amendment and related state constitutional precepts.
