Recent graduate student Alison Brody (M.A. broadcast journalism, '07) produced an Aug. 27 National Public Radio piece that examines Transcendental Meditation, a spiritual practice popularized in the 1960s that is showing up in elementary school classrooms.
Opponents, some of whom have threatened to sue, claim the meditation is religious and violates the separation of church and state.
"Some people say it's a religion, some people say it's a cult, some say it's a sect -- it is so much bologna," said filmmaker David Lynch, who practices Transcendental Meditation. "I don't want another religion, I don't want to join a cult, and I would have stopped meditating if it didn't give me something very, very special."
Brody is part of the News21 program, a national initiative led by five of America's leading research universities, and more specifically part of USC Annenberg's Transcendental Meditation in Schools series. USC Annenberg students reported on the search for spirituality as part of this year's News 21 project.
