A professor of education at Yeshiva University is comparing new regulations affecting New York’s yeshivas to the “forced education of Native American children,” warning that the regulations are an “act of cultural genocide.”

In one of five new affidavits filed alongside a motion for preliminary injunction, Moshe Krakowski writes that the regulations “will prevent many Orthodox communities from practicing their faith as they understand it.”

The new regulations subject yeshivas to review by local school districts to determine whether the Jewish schools are meeting standards of “substantial equivalence” to their public counterparts. Several yeshivas and Jewish organizations have filed a lawsuit against state regulators in the New York state supreme court and last week filed a motion for a preliminary injunction.

Mr. Krakowski called the regulations a “deliberate attempt to forcefully change the religious life of a minority community.” 

Much of the coverage of the yeshivas’ plight has been focused on the curricular ramifications of the regulations: limiting time spent on religious education in favor of more instruction on secular topics — as well as potential ideological conflicts arising from curricular mandates on science and health.

Under the new regulations, however, the curricula of the yeshivas would not be the only aspect of classroom instruction under review; local school districts would also have oversight on faculty hiring. 

As part of the reviews, local public school districts would determine “whether instruction is given only by a competent teacher” in nonpublic schools. State law exempts teachers at nonpublic schools from certification, but, beyond this, competency is not defined in the regulations — giving the state a broad mandate.

The filings for the preliminary injunction allege this regulatory authority would eliminate the yeshivas’ autonomy in hiring practices.

The affidavits and preliminary injunction focus on the process of “religious socialization” and the essential role that faculty play in the formation of the students’ religious worldview. 

An affidavit from a longtime economics professor at New York University, Israel Kirzner, expressed concern that giving the state supervision over hiring would hinder the school’s religious mission — including at Mesivta Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim Berlin, where he is an alumnus and serves as a board member.

“At MYRCB, we expect all of our faculty — including our general studies teachers — to model and promote behavior in conformity with the religious values at our core,” Rabbi Kirzner, a prominent Austrian economist, said. The state regulators’ standards for competency “surely will not be the same standards employed” by the yeshiva, Rabbi Kirzner wrote.

Additional affidavits stress “ethical and moral development,” and emphasize values imparted by faculty members beyond classroom instruction.

In the filings, the plaintiffs cite the 2020 Supreme Court ruling in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru as precedent for “religious autonomy” in faculty hiring. 

In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that the so-called ministerial exception grants religious schools autonomy in hiring practices “without government intrusion.”

“The religious education and formation of students is the very reason for the existence of most private religious schools,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion, “and therefore the selection and supervision of the teachers upon whom the schools rely to do this work lie at the core of their mission.”