Tag Archives: Group: Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA)

Turtle Bay and Beyond: The AP reports on a US Apeals Court decision to leave a family of homeschoolers at the mercy of the German Government, even though the Court found that the US Constitution forbids the state from prohibiting homeschooling. The family faces impossible fines and loss of custody of their children if they are returned to Germany. They should have just pretended to be gay.

Eugene Volokh at the Volokh Conspiracy: Jonathan posted earlier today about Romeike v. Holder (6th Cir. May 14, 2013), which reject German homeschoolers’ asylum claim. The opinion is quite readable and persuasive, and I recommend it to those interested in the subject. But here’s my general thinking (reprised from 2010 post on the original immigration judge decision in the case), and stressing that I’m not an expert on asylum law:

Jonathan Adler reports on the ruling at the Volokh Conspiracy: The relevant legislation applies only to those who have a “well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(42)(A). There is a difference between the persecution of a discrete group and the prosecution of those who violate a generally applicable law.

Baptist Press: Alan Sears, president of Alliance Defending Freedom, noted that a key benefit of ADF’s involvement in helping defend religious freedom overseas is “the crucial perspective it gives us” for defending legal rights in America.”

HSLDA: Last week, HSLDA sent a nationwide alert asking you to call your U.S. senators and urge them to sign a letter from Senator Chuck Grassley exhorting Congress to defund the federal government’s role in the Common Core Standards and Curriculum.

One News Now: Roger Kiska, legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, explains the state’s point of view. “They’re absolutely oppressive with regard to parental rights. They believe that the only duty of the parents basically is to give birth and then the child belongs to the state,” he tells American Family News. “So we had known all along that this was going to be something that would have to be taken from Sweden and brought to the European level.” Kiska says the remaining option is to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, which has jurisdiction over Sweden. [more]

LifeSiteNews: Roger Kiska, the Alliance Defending Freedom’s senior legal counsel in Europe, was outraged by the court’s action. “It is beyond belief that a modern civilized country could allow such injustice to continue,” he said. “There is no evidence in the record that justifies the continued separation of this family. We will continue to fight for this family and on behalf of the principle that the European Convention condemns such acts.”

One News Now: Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Roger Kiska contends that the state wants to be the parent of all students, indoctrinating them with the state’s ideology. “I’ve heard statements in Sweden and in France recently that the role of the parent is simply to give birth to a child, and then it’s the state’s duty to educate the child,” Kiska accounts. “That’s absolutely contrary to international law and morality.”

HSLDA: Roger Kiska, the Alliance Defending Freedom’s senior legal counsel in Europe, was outraged by the court’s action. “It is beyond belief that a modern civilized country could allow such injustice to continue,” he said. “There is no evidence in the record that justifies the continued separation of this family. We will continue to fight for this family and on behalf of the principle that the European Convention condemns such acts.”

HSLDA: The military has new policies for homeschool graduates who seek to enlist. These are simply to determine if your child was actually homeschooled and not for any other reason. We are very pleased that the new law is leading to good policies for homeschool enlistment across the services.

MercatorNet.com: But Gotland (province) Social Services persisted, and managed to get a mid-level appeal court to overturn the district court ruling. Now the couple, with the aid of the US-based Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) and the Alliance Defending Freedom, have taken their case to the Supreme Court of Sweden. They are being represented by Ruby Harrold-Claesson of the Nordic Committee on Human Rights. . . . Alliance Defending Freedom and HSLDA are encouraging concerned people from all over the world to participate in an HSLDA-sponsored letter-writing campaign that asks the Supreme Court of Sweden to accept the case Johansson v. Gotland Social Services and return Domenic to his parents.

Baptist Press: A German family should be granted asylum in the U.S. because their s native government is denying a fundamental human right by preventing them from homeschooling their children, attorney Michael Farris told a three-judge panel of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals Tuesday (April 23) in Cincinnati.

Huffington Post: Home-schooling families in Europe have become a cause celebre for some U.S. conservatives. The Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom is working with two Swedish home-schooling families, including Christer and Annie Johansson, who lost custody of 11-year-old Domenic when they refused to enroll him in public school.

CBN (includes video): Alliance Defending Freedom and the Home-School Legal Defense Association have asked the European court of Human Rights to hear the case of a Swedish family heavily fined for home-schooling.

weden’s highest court is being asked to free an 11-year-old boy whom government officials have held in captivity for four years because his parents home-schooled him. Attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom and the Home School Legal Defense Association are legal advisors to the parents, who are represented by Ruby Harrold-Claesson of the Nordic Committee on Human Rights.

WorldNetDaily: Swedish parents Annie and Christer Johansson have launched what may be their last hope to see their son again – with an appeal to the Supreme Court of Sweden to overturn a lower court’s decision to end their parental rights over homeschooling . . . he HSLDA has been working on Domenic’s case, along with officials from the Alliance Defending Freedom.
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/04/homeschool-parents-have-1-shot-to-see-son-again/#vPLSHHFWFSdLzt1K.99

Robert Knight at Townhall: A courageous German Christian couple refused to hand over their children to the government schools and fled to America three years ago. Now, the Obama Administration is trying to send them back. A likely outcome would be the state seizing the children and imprisoning the parents.

Christian Newswire: Focus on the Family spokesman and Truth Project founder Dr. Del Tackett yesterday declared his support for HSLDA’s efforts to defend the Romeike family. Tackett believes that the U.S. government is siding with the restrictive homeschooling laws in Germany and that this could have serious implications for American homeschoolers.

Jillian Kay Melchior at NRO: Uwe and Hannelore Romeike fled to the United States in 2008, claiming the German government had denied their religious freedom by forbidding them from homeschooling their children. Now, the Obama administration is trying to send them back, even though the Romeikes might lose their children if they’re deported to Germany.

Todd Starnes at Townhall: The Romeike family fled their German homeland in 2008 seeking political asylum in the United States – where they hoped to home school their children. Instead, the Obama administration wants the evangelical Christian family deported.

Ben Bull at Townhall: Some sentences are made of words while others are made of jail time. And home-schooling families focused on the former kind of sentences are increasingly finding themselves under the threat of the latter—even in America. For example, consider Uwe and Hannelore Romeike

Baptist Press: The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of appeals has agreed to hear the case of a Christian family from Germany seeking asylum in the U.S. over their resolve to homeschool their five school-age children.

AP: A couple who fled Germany with their five children over fears they would lose custody for not sending them to school has asked a federal appeals court to grant them asylum in the U.S.

Baptist Press: A family homeschooling safely in rural Tennessee may be forced to return to their native Germany, where the parents likely face huge fines and criminal penalties, and could lose custody of their five school-age children. Uwe and Hannelore Romeike are looking to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to give them permanent refugee status. But Attorney General Eric Holder is disputing their case, arguing Germany’s ban on homeschooling fails to violate the family’s fundamental rights.

Michael Farris at HSLDA: But, let’s assess the position of the United States government on the face of its argument: a nation violates no one’s rights if it bans homeschooling entirely.

HSLDA: The Supreme Court of Nebraska will decide whether homeschoolers Eric and Gail Thacker violated Nebraska law because their homeschool calendar didn’t start until October while the public schools began in August.

WorldNetDaily: An appeals court panel in Sweden has imposed the “death penalty” on a homeschooling family, granting the state full custody of their son, who famously was “state-napped” from a jetliner in 2009 as the family prepared to move to India. The appeals panel reversed a lower court ruling that granted Annie and Christer Johansson custody of their son, Domenic. But if the decision is not reversed again by the nation’ Supreme Court, the Johansson’s will lose their son, according to the Home School Legal Defense Association, which has been working on the case with the Alliance Defending Freedom . . .

LifeSiteNews: Nova Scotia would become the “worst” jurisdiction in Canada for homeschooling if the government adopts a set of recommendations calling for increased oversight of families, says a homeschooling leader.

HSLDA: Kenyan homeschoolers are concerned that the proposed education law moving through their parliament will prevent them from exercising their right to homeschool their children.

HSLDA: The Social Welfare Committee responsible for keeping Domenic Johansson separated from his parents for more than three years has appealed the June 2012 court ruling that upheld Christer and Annie Johanssons’ parental rights.

HSLDA: “Once children are exempted from public school attendance, they might get no education at all.” It is always easy to stir up anxiety about “what ifs.” But let’s look at the reality. In 1994, Dr. Brian D. Ray analyzed the standardized test scores of students educated under the religious exemption. He concluded: “Based on this sample of students, Virginia’s home educated students operating under the state of Virginia’s religious exemption statute are doing quite well in terms of academic achievement. In fact, on average, they score 33 to 40 percentile points higher than the national average of students tested.”

Lisa Shaw Roy, The Evangelical Footprint, 2011 Michigan State Law Review 1235-1291.

Funding for evangelical advocacy received a boost with the formation of the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) in 1994. Prominent movement leaders, such as James Dobson of Focus on the Family and Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ, formed ADF to fund litigation and to coordinate the efforts of Christian litigation firms.

ADF has been responsible for providing funding in several high profile cases, including Rosenberger, decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. ADF also sponsors litigation firms with overlapping interests, such as the Christian Law Association, Pacific Justice Institute, the Home School Legal Defense Fund, and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, to name a few. While ADF began solely as an umbrella organization to provide funds to individual lawyers and law firms, ADF now also takes its own cases.

Though its success as a funding organization seems apparent given, for example, the number of Supreme Court amicus curiae briefs that disclose ADF support, some opine that its success in coordinating evangelical litigation efforts has been mixed.

HSLDA: This summer, homeschool graduate Christina Colster (names changed to protect privacy) received an answer she had waited for her entire senior year: Social Security recognized that she was a homeschooled student and awarded her benefits previously denied.

HSLDA (embeds testimony by Mike Farris): Home School Legal Defense Association has been urging supporters to call their U.S. senators and ask them to oppose the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). And on Tuesday we reported that Patriot Voices chairman and former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum had joined the fight. Your calls are working! This morning a prominent D.C. publication, The Hill, reported that the treaty has been temporarily derailed from the fast track . . .

HSLDA on the Christian Newswire: Parental rights will be eviscerated by the mandatory application of the ‘best interest of the child’ standard,” said Farris. “If parents think that private education is best for their child, the CRPD gives the government the authority and the legal duty to override that judgment and keep the child in the government-approved program that the officials think is best for the child.”

ADF Blog: lmost three years ago today, an unspeakable nightmare befell a loving innocent family simply because they wanted to educate their seven-year-old son from home.

LifeSiteNews: The U.S.-based Alliance Defense Fund and Home School Legal Defense Alliance are providing legal advice. “The government shouldn’t abduct and imprison children simply because it doesn’t like home schooling,” said ADF Legal Counsel Roger Kiska. “This family’s human rights have been unimaginably violated.”

One News Now: But now, says Roger Kiska of Alliance Defense Fund, the courts have finally sided with the family, stating the unanimous and extensive testimony of friends and family favoring Christer and Annie could not be ignored. “Social services has been evil, to put it in one word,” the attorney tells OneNewsNow . . . “… It’s happening in Germany, it’s now happening in Bulgaria — and when these things happen in Europe, they tend to make their down to the United States rather quickly,” warns Kiska. “There’s been a slew of bad precedent that the United States Supreme Court and state supreme courts have taken from Europe. So I think everyone needs to be aware.” [more]

HSLDA on the Christian Newswire: ADF Legal Counsel Roger Kiska says the family’s human rights have been unimaginably violated. “The government shouldn’t abduct and imprison children simply because it doesn’t like home schooling,” said ADF Legal Counsel Roger Kiska. “We …

Domenic Johansson still in government captivity after three years

Novinite.com: “This is a clear-cut case of arbitrary use of power,” explained the family’s attorney, Viktor Kostov, who is working with the international Alliance Defense Fund on the case. “The authorities are trying to scare the family into bowing down to the [Social Services Child Protection Unit]‘s demand that the child go back to school … they have absolutely no grounds for accusing the father and mother of a crime.”

The New American: “This is a clear-cut case of arbitrary use of power,” explained the family’s attorney, Viktor Kostov, who is working with the international Alliance Defense Fund on the case. “The authorities are trying to scare the family into bowing down to the [Social Services Child Protection Unit]’s demand that the child go back to school … they have absolutely no grounds for accusing the father and mother of a crime.”

Christian Newswire: The Holy See mission to the United Nations assembly in New York called upon UN Member States to respect the right of parents to homeschool their children in a statement before the United Nations two weeks ago.

LifeSiteNews: The Christian Post reports that Bulgaria’s government is instituting new family law asserting that while parents have responsibilities towards their children, they have no rights to make educational decisions. Viktor Kostov, a Bulgarian lawyer and human rights activist, reports . . . He warns that should the bill pass, it could be used by state ideologues to quash the religious and political rights of citizens by threatening their custody over their children. Freedom for All Advocates, the Alliance Defense Fund, and the Home School Legal Defense Association have intervened in the debate over the bill, warning that similar measures in other EU countries have resulted in the state having near-total control over families and children.

LifeSiteNews: “The State should respect the choices that parents make for their children and avoid attempts at ideological indoctrination,” the permanent observer mission of the Holy See to the United Nations wrote in a statement released last Tuesday.

In many countries around the world, government authorities and even society in general are openly hostile or pessimistic toward homeschooling.

HSLDA: By enrolling their children in church schools not necessarily located within the city or county where they reside. Home School Legal Defense Association assisted a member family in Tuscaloosa County earlier this month when public school officials challenged their daughter’s enrollment in a church school outside the county. The family not only received a letter from the attendance officer stating that the church school enrollment form filed earlier with the superintendent was unacceptable, but they also received a Notice of Noncompliance with Alabama Compulsory Attendance Law that threatened criminal prosecution in three days.

David Kramer at LewRockwell.com: A number of associations around the world have expressed their outrage at this “Soviet-style” (it is Sweden, after all) tyranny. This number includes: the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), Advocates International, the Network for Freedom in Education, the Nordic Committee for Human Rights, and the Christian Broadcasting Network (!!!).

Homeschool Heartbeat Radio: HSLDA and the Alliance Defense Fund and our Swedish attorneys hope that this signals a willingness by courts to at least look at this untenable situation for Swedish homeschoolers.

HSLDA reports on the case of Scott and Jodi Ferris.

HSLDA reports (includes audio).

HSLDA: This coming Monday, March 26, the U.S. Supreme Court will notify HSLDA whether it has decided to hear the Loudermilk case concerning a homeschooling family’s right to home privacy.

HSLDA: Earlier this month, Home School Legal Defense Association intervened on behalf of a member family in the Carmichaels Area School District whose superintendent had unlawfully threatened to terminate their home education program if they did not submit a mid-year evaluation.

One News Now: Michael Donnelly of America’s Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) is asking home schoolers in the homeland to contact Swedish officials and urge them to stop persecuting parents who are attempting to home school their children.

Baptist Press: The U.S.-based Home School Legal Defense Association and the Alliance Defense Fund have filed a brief in a Swedish court on behalf of the Himmelstrands. “Homeschooling is legal in the United States and in many other countries only after decades of tumultuous legislative and legal conflicts,” Michael Donnelly of HSLDA said.

HSLDA: Jesse Furman, a lawyer with a proven track record of anti-Christian bigotry and judicial activism, has been nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. A vote is scheduled in the Senate Friday, February

HSLDA : Alliance Defense Fund allied attorney Viktor Kostov of Bulgaria explained that the proposed bill is radical and unnecessary. “The Child Act places excessive authority for children into the hands of the state in the name of ‘children’s rights,’ replacing the traditional role of the family in the raising of children and violating provisions in numerous international treaties.

HSLDA : Himmelstrand and his wife had homeschooled their three children for multiple years before authorities in the municipality where they live denied them permission in 2008. The Himmelstrands currently face fines in excess of $26,000 in U.S. currency for their choice to homeschool. HSLDA and the Alliance Defense Fund have filed a brief in a Swedish appellate court on behalf of the family. | HSLDA press release at Christian Newswire

Turtle Bay and Beyond: A recent oped advocating for US ratification prompted ParentalRights.org president Michael Farris to warn of renewed calls for President Obama to move to ratify before November.

The New American: The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a U.S.-based conservative legal advocacy group, noted that Edholm’s recommendation comes at a time when home school families in Sweden are under severe assault. The ADF, in partnership with another U.S. group, the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), has come to the legal aid of a Swedish home school family whose nine-year-old son was abducted by the Swedish government in 2009. According to an ADF press release, Swedish officials “seized the child because they believe home schooling is an inappropriate way to raise a child and insist the government should raise [him] instead, even though home-schooling was legal in Sweden at the time he was taken into custody.

WorldNetDaily: The HSLDA also works with the Alliance Defense Fund to challenge such violations of parental rights. Roger Kiska, a European-based attorney working with the ADF, warned, “Parents have the right and authority to make decisions regarding their children’s education without government interference. Swedish policy on home education is at odds with recognized international legal standards that uphold the right of parents to direct the education of their children. Those standards include the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other human rights documents, all of which recognize that parents have a fundamental right to choose what kind of education their children will receive.”

HSLDA: Roger Kiska is an ADF attorney stationed in Europe who has brought numerous cases before the European Court of Human Rights on family issues, including homeschooling. He says that the European Court of Human Rights has not been particularly supportive of homeschoolers. “The ECHR is giving aid and comfort to Sweden’s repressive home education policies. But ECHR jurisprudence and Swedish, as well as German, policy on home education is at odds with recognized international legal standards that uphold the right of parents to direct the education of their children,” Kiska said. “The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other human rights documents all recognize that parents of children have a fundamental right to choose what kind of education their children will receive. We are committed to working with HSLDA and others to vindicate this right. We will stand with families like the Johanssons and Himmelstrands until we win.”

Christian Newswire: The Home School Legal Defense Association and Alliance Defense Fund and have applied to the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of one family whose child was abducted by the government in 2009 and have filed a brief in a Swedish appellate court on behalf of another family fined an amount equivalent to $26,000.

ADF, HSLDA say changes would violate int’l legal standards on human rights

WorldNetDaily: Michael Donnelly, director of international relations at Home School Legal Defense Association, says this decision offers a glimmer of light in the case. “I am hopeful that this is the beginning of the end to the horrific treatment these people have suffered at the hands of Swedish authorities over the past two and a half years,” he said. “The Johansson family have endured unspeakable tyranny over their decision to homeschool their child and then to attempt to leave Sweden. Sweden’s behavior in this case has been shocking.” His organization and representatives of the Alliance Defense Fund are pursuing a case over the custody battle before the European Court of Human Rights

ADF Attorney Benjamin Bull at Townhall : All Domenic Johansson really wants for Christmas is his life back . . . In this season, as so many of us are thinking – as we should – of the children who don’t have toys or a turkey for Christmas, let us also remember those children who long not just for something to eat or play with, but for the freedom to honor the deepest convictions of their souls.

HSLDA : Christer and Annie Johansson have won a small but hopeful victory in their quest to regain custody of their nine-year-old son Domenic who was taken from them over 2 years ago in a dramatic raid while the family was seated on an airliner departing the Nordic country. Ruby Harrold-Claesson, the couple’s attorney, reported to HSLDA that the Gotland District Court ruled in favor of the Johanssons, allowing them to retain their parental rights of Domenic . . . HSLDA continues to work with the Alliance Defense Fund and Harrold-Claesson at the European Court of Human Rights representing the family in their lawsuit against Sweden.

HSLDA: On Tuesday, December 13, the U.S. Senate’s Subcommittee on Children and Families held a hearing on S. 1877, a bill to require all adults to be mandatory reporters of child abuse and neglect. HSLDA believes that this bill will create a police-state reporting environment that will lead to baseless investigations of innocent families, and actually hurt at-risk children. HSLDA opposes S. 1877.

HSLDA: New truancy enforcement laws have sparked criminal charges against several homeschool families in Nebraska. A Dawson County Sheriff’s deputy actually threatened to remove one family’s children unless they enrolled them in public school.

Baptist Press: “The government shouldn’t abduct and imprison children simply because it doesn’t like homeschooling,” ADF legal counsel Roger Kiska said. “That’s bad enough. But now the state is going even further by attempting to get the parents out of the way altogether. This simply cannot stand.”

WorldNetDaily: The battle lines over homeschooling rights overseas and in the United States have been sharpened by the publication of a law journal article that concludes that Germany does persecute homeschoolers and that the first waves of its impact already have hit the U.S. The article, “Germany Homeschoolers as ‘Particular Society Group’: Evaluation Under Current U.S. Asylum Jurisprudence,” was written by Miki Kawashima Matrician and published recently in the 2011 Boston College International and Comparative Law Review.

Crosswalk Religion News Summaries: The Home School Legal Defense Association and the Alliance Defense Fund have been working to bring attention to the case and encourage the Swedish government to release Domenic back to his family. “The government shouldn’t abduct and imprison children simply because it doesn’t like homeschooling,” said ADF legal counsel Roger Kiska. “That’s bad enough. But now the state is going even further by attempting to get the parents out of the way altogether. This simply cannot stand.”

HSLDA on Christian Newswire: Both ADF and HSLDA are currently asking for letters to be written in an attempt to renew attention to the family’s case and to encourage Swedish officials to release Domenic back to his family. “The government shouldn’t abduct and imprison children simply because it doesn’t like homeschooling. That’s bad enough. But now the state is going even further by attempting to get the parents out of the way altogether,” said ADF Legal Counsel Roger Kiska. “This simply cannot stand. We will do everything in our power to help reunite this family.”

WorldNetDaily: That word has come from officials with the Home School Legal Defense Association, which along with the Alliance Defense Fund already has elevated the dispute involving Christer and Annie Johannson and their son, Domenic, of Sweden to the Europe Court of Human rights.

Christian Newswire: A judge dismissed the case against a homeschool family in southern Spain that was facing a possible order to send their son back to school. “This is an important victory for the González family and homeschoolers in Spain,” said Michael Donnelly, Director of International Relations at the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA).