On May 2 we told you that the plaintiffs in the Tampa labor trafficking case — Valeska Paris and Gawain and Laura Baxter — had asked Judge Thomas Barber for permission to appeal his decision forcing them into “religious arbitration” and derailing their lawsuit.
You would probably not be surprised to hear that Scientology is not in favor of this idea.
Saying that his hands were tied, Judge Barber accepted the idea that contracts signed by Valeska and the Baxters obliged them not to sue in court and to take their grievances to Scientology’s internal justice system. Normally, the plaintiffs would have to go through Scientology’s arbitration before they could appeal Barber’s ruling to the Eleventh Circuit.
But they’ve asked Judge Barber to give them permission to go to the Eleventh Circuit now with an “interlocutory” appeal, saying that waiting to go through Scientology arbitration could take years. And, based on what we’ve seen the Garcias and Valerie Haney go through in their own lawsuits, they certainly have a point.
Scientology, of course, is happy with Judge Barber’s ruling and don’t want him to grant the request for the early appeal.
We figured you’d want to see some of the language they’re using, written by attorney Gustavo Membiela…
Well sure, if these folks would just get with the program, Scientology arbitration is a breeze.
What follows is a lengthy legal argument against the points raised by the plaintiffs. And now it’s Judge Barber’s move to decide whether to allow the Baxters and Valeska to take their appeal to the Eleventh Circuit.
As we’ve pointed out before, however, the Eleventh Circuit has already found for Scientology arbitration in the Garcia case, so once again this case will be going uphill.
Well, we’ll be keeping an eye out for Judge Barber’s decision either way.
Swedish government shutting down Scientology school
We’ve been so busy at the Danny Masterson retrial we didn’t get a chance to note a story we heard about from a number of our readers in Sweden.
Studemaskolan is a school run by Scientology’s sneaky curriculum front, Applied Scholastics, and has operated in Stockholm since 1991 (and not without controversy).
Multiple news organizations in that country reported this week that the School Inspectorate has revoked the school’s permit because it determined that the Scientology-soaked curriculum is unscientific.
Wow! The principal of the school will not be allowed to run the school as of August 15, but the decision is appealable.
As we said, the school has been controversial in the past, so why is it being shut down now? Well, according to one story we read, it was because since December the Swedish government asked the Inspectorate to review denominational schools in order to look for risks of extremism or Islamism. And that review happened to notice that Scientology schools are, after all, indoctrinating their kids in, well, Scientology.
Imagine that.
In 2019, the school was criticized by Dr. Stephen Kent of Alberta University as a “facade” for Scientology, and that the ultimate goal of Applied Scholastics was to have L. Ron Hubbard’s methods being used throughout the country’s schools.
Bonus items from our tipsters
Woo-hoo! Another $3.8 million for empty buildings.
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Scientology policy and legal documents have only one purpose, to protect the organization. The sky high purpose of the cult supersedes Justice, the law and fair play. Every member is indoctrinated to believe this. The continued exposure of Hubbard and Miscavige’s dogma are the only guarantee that the toxic organization will implode. Thank you Tony for your diligence.
One sentence in the quoted legal document Tony quotes, one sentence in that doc just gets me seething.
".......No binding authority holds that the First Amendment prevents enforcement of a private agreement via religious arbitration...."
I can't even begin to express all that it makes me seeth about.
Three sub seething thoughts arise, when I do the "thought experiment" to try to express my rage.
I almost don't want to get "into it" because it seems such an intractable problem, but if "religious arbitration" is being in ANY way being allowed legally to surpass secular rights of a US citizen, then this moment, this moment in US legal history will cause untold "religious" infection and damage to the rights of future and other people in history ahead.
I am alarmed mostly that NO legal minds are debating these Scientology "religious arbitration" precedents which Scientology lawyers are presuming they can establish which allows the religiously tainted "Scientology religious arbitrations" which in fact do enforce religion onto the no longer Scientologists who wish their full secular US citizen legal rights to sue Scientology, no matter what "religiously tainted" "legally signed" clauses in the legal Scientology legal agreements signed when the now ex Scientologists were Scientologists.
It is fundamentally invasion of hampered and non full US citizens rights, being allowed to legally prevail over US citizen's normal unrestrained full legal rights.
The "religion angle" horrible Hubbard intent on full display and protected under US law, it horribly seems. Equal rights only from a Scientology viewpoint, and not from a secular citizen's viewpoint.
It's like Hubbard's "Clean Hands Make a Happy Life" policy's horrible thought experiment implications being started for real, upon USA.
I guess the bottom line, is the LESSONs I commented also on.