Parents of school children from the Chicago area and throughout Illinois have sued nearly 150 Illinois school districts and Gov. JB Pritzker, among others, asserting their children’s rights have been trampled by rules requiring their children to wear face coverings while in school, or to be forced to stay home from school, out of suspicion they may have been exposed to COVID-19.
The lawsuit was filed in downstate Macoupin County on Oct. 20, by attorneys Tom Devore, Jeffrey Mollet and Erik D. Hyam, of the Silver Lake Group, of Greenville.
The lawsuit named at least 69 Chicago area school districts as defendants, including the Chicago Public Schools and districts from all regions of Chicago’s suburbs. Those suburban school districts included those in the communities of Elgin, Aurora, Naperville, Hinsdale, Lake Forest, Winnetka, Downers Grove, Addison, Park Ridge, Palatine, Arlington Heights, Plainfield, Palos, Geneva, St. Charles, Libertyville, Wheaton, Bolingbrook, Barrington, Romeoville, New Lenox, Oswego, Orland Park, Carpentersville, Huntley, McHenry and Woodstock, among many others.
Tom Devore
| Silver Lake Group
Other named defendants include Pritzker; the Illinois Department of Public Health, with its director, Dr. Ngozi Ezike; and the Illinois State Board of Education, with its superintendent, Carmen Ayala.
In the lawsuit, the parents of children enrolled in each of the defendant school districts accuse the school districts and the state of violating Illinois law and the students’ and parents’ rights to due process in the way the state and school districts have enforced state rules and orders, issued in the name of fighting COVID-19. The lawsuit is filed as a class action on behalf of all parents and students in all of the named Illinois school districts.
The lawsuit takes particular aim at executive orders issued by Pritzker, “emergency rules” issued by the IDPH, and “guidance” to schools issued by the ISBE, since mid-September.
Those orders and rules explicitly require school districts to compel all students to wear face coverings while at school.
Further, an “emergency rule” issued by the IDPH allows schools to block students from attending in-person classes and other school activities, should school officials classify such students as close contacts of others who may have tested positive for COVID.
The lawsuit asserts that emergency rule essentially rewrote the definition of quarantine under state law, removing exclusion from school as part of the definition of quarantine.
The lawsuit says the state took such actions solely to thwart court orders secured by Devore on behalf of other parents, barring school districts from enforcing state masking and exclusion rules. In those cases, Devore had argued the school districts lacked the authority under state law to enforce any kind of quarantine against students.
He said such authority is granted solely to county health departments and the courts.
Without a valid order from the county health department, Devore argued, school districts cannot either compel students to wear masks without parental consent, nor can they remove students from school out of suspicion that they may have been exposed to COVID.
In his new complaint, Devore and the parents he is representing reiterated those arguments, asserting rules requiring face masks in school amounts, and school district decisions to kick students out of school after potential COVID exposure, amount to illegal quarantine orders.
“It would be an absurd proposition for the Defendants to suggest the certified local health department are required to obtain consent of the parent, or a court order, yet the Defendants somehow can disregard this same procedural and substantive due process,” the complaint said.
“… Quite simply, the Defendants are infringing upon the lawful right of the Students, and of their parents or guardians, to be free to choose for themselves whether mask wearing as a treatment, or type of modified quarantine, for the purpose of limiting the spread of an infectious disease, is, absent a court order, appropriate, especially where the Defendants have used, as a sword, direct and unabashed threats to the Students’ right to an education if they refuse to comply,” the complaint said.
Devore and the parents further argued Pritzker’s new executive orders and the rule changes issued by the state agencies are similarly illegal, as they cite a public health “emergency” the plaintiffs allege no longer exists.
Further, they argue Pritzker has abused his authority under Illinois’ emergency management law, by using powers reserved to the governor, to also enlarge the power and authority of school districts and state agencies, granting them public health powers that exceed the limits set by state law.
“None of the Defendants have any lawful authority to demand or require any type of treatment or modified quarantine upon the Students to allegedly prevent the spread of an infectious disease, and certainly not without providing due process to such parent, guardians, and Students,” the complaint said.
The lawsuit seeks court orders barring the school districts and the state officials from enforcing any of the orders, rules or guidance issued by Pritzker, the IDPH and the ISBE;
Forbidding the school districts from requiring students to wear masks without parental consent; and
Barring the school districts from excluding students from school on suspicion of exposure to COVID, without a valid order from a court or the local county health department.
Editor's note: This article has been revised from an earlier version to correctly identify the date on which the lawsuit referenced in the article was filed.