WEB RELEASE: Decem­ber 1, 2009
Media Con­tact:
Bob Ewing (703) 682‑9320

[Eco­nomic Lib­erty] 

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Arling­ton, Va.—May the state of Vir­ginia sub­ject yoga instruc­tors to thou­sands of dol­lars in fines and a year in jail for engag­ing in unau­tho­rized talking?

This is the ques­tion the Insti­tute for Jus­tice (IJ) seeks to answer in a fed­eral First Amend­ment law­suit filed today on behalf of three Vir­ginia yoga instructors—Julia Kalish, Suzanne Leitner-Wise and Bev Brown.  Virginia’s con­tro­ver­sial speech pro­hi­bi­tion has received sig­nif­i­cant media atten­tion, from out­lets includ­ing the Wash­ing­ton Post and Rich­mond Times-Dispatch. 

“In Vir­ginia, you can teach any­one anything—except how to earn an hon­est liv­ing,” said Robert From­mer, a staff attor­ney with the Insti­tute for Jus­tice, a national pub­lic inter­est law firm with a his­tory of defend­ing free speech and the rights of entre­pre­neurs.  “This law makes no sense.  It says any­body can do yoga, and any­body can teach yoga, but it’s ille­gal to teach peo­ple to teach yoga.”

Yoga-teacher train­ing is the lat­est tar­get of vocational-school licens­ing laws that require count­less entre­pre­neurs to ask the government’s per­mis­sion before open­ing their mouths. The cost of com­pli­ance is typ­i­cally thou­sands of dol­lars and over a week of full-time admin­is­tra­tive work—enough to put small schools out of business.

IJ client Suzanne Leitner-Wise said, “I’m a small busi­ness.  I’m try­ing to make a liv­ing doing some­thing that I love to do.  If I did have to com­ply with the Vir­ginia reg­u­la­tions, then I wouldn’t be able to continue.”

Vir­ginia yoga instruc­tor schools must pay a $2,500 appli­ca­tion fee and then a yearly renewal fee of $500-$2,500 based on gross tuition col­lected; sub­mit finan­cial and other records, some of which must be reviewed by an accoun­tant; and other school records, get the com­mon­wealth to review the “qual­ity” of the school’s cur­ricu­lum; pur­chase a bond of at least $5,000 and cre­ate and main­tain moun­tains of admin­is­tra­tive records and documents. 

Fail­ure to com­ply can result in steep penal­ties.  Each vio­la­tion incurs a fine of $1,000, capped at $25,000 in fines per year.  Crim­i­nal penal­ties of up to one year in prison or a $2,500 fine can also be levied for each vio­la­tion of the statute or reg­u­la­tions, regard­less of how minor.
“Yoga teacher train­ing is some­thing that goes back thou­sands and thou­sands of years,” said IJ client Julia Kalish.  “This is a tra­di­tion that’s been passed on gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion.  I don’t think it should be the state who decides whether or not we can con­tinue this tradition.”

From­mer added, “Teach­ing is speech, plain and sim­ple.  Under the First Amend­ment, Vir­ginia can­not require teach­ers to get the government’s per­mis­sion before speak­ing to their stu­dents.  That’s why we filed today’s fed­eral First Amend­ment law­suit.  We’re going to strike down this uncon­sti­tu­tional law and defend the rights of our clients and entre­pre­neurs across the state.”

Founded in 1991, the Virginia-based Insti­tute for Jus­tice rep­re­sents indi­vid­u­als in court­rooms across the coun­try who suc­cess­fully defend their free speech rights and abil­ity to earn an hon­est liv­ing in the occu­pa­tions of their choice.

Tags: VA Yoga Regulation, Yoga, yoga instruction