CHICAGO — A federal judge has tossed a lawsuit from an Oak Lawn school board member and Republican congressional candidate who sought to overturn Gov. JB Pritzker's mandate on masks inside school buildings.
Rob Cruz, who sits on the board of Oak Lawn Community High School District 229, is a Republican primary candidate for Illinois Sixth Congressional District, a seat held by Rep. Sean Casten, D-Downers Grove. On Aug. 19, Cruz and another parent, Scot Jones, sued Gov. JB Pritzker and Illinois State Board of Education Director Carmen Ayala, as well as his own school board, challenging an Aug. 4 executive order requiring masks for anyone older than 2 years, inside an Illinois school, regardless of COVID-19 vaccination status.
The state moved to dismiss the complaint, which argued the mask mandate violates the 14th Amendment’s due process clause as well as parents’ “fundamental liberty interest in the care, custody, education and control of their children.”
Rob Cruz
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In an opinion issued Dec. 14, U.S. District Judge Sharon Coleman agreed to dismiss the complaint.
“Plaintiffs argue that their liberty interest in raising their children and making medically-related decisions for them extends to the context of mask mandates during the COVID-19 global pandemic,” Coleman wrote. But they “failed to plausibly allege that the mask mandate in schools, which was enacted to prevent the spread of the deadly coronavirus among students, teachers, faculty and visitors, is so egregious and outrageous as to shock the conscience.”
Coleman noted Pritzker’s executive order, and a school district resolution essentially agreeing to implement the order, “is intended to save lives during an ongoing public health crisis that has taken at least 800,000 American lives.” She further said Cruz and Jones would have needed to show the government acted arbitrarily and egregiously, but failed to do so.
In order for a substantive due process claim to survive a motion to dismiss, Coleman explained, they must meet a high standard, even if the government’s conduct is “abhorrent.” She quoted a 2012 U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals opinion, Geinosky v. City of Chicago, which established such a bar “to avoid constitutionalizing every tort committed by a public employee.”
She further agreed with the state that Cruz and Jones lack standing to challenge the executive order and its local adoption because they didn’t allege a legal injury. With Cruz and Jones said the injury is the loss of their direct relationship with their children, Coleman said that could only provide standing if they had adequately mounted a due process claim. She said their allegations don’t affect them as individuals, but are “a generalized grievance” shared by and parent of an Illinois student.
Although she agreed the men don’t have standing in federal court, she did analyze their request for an injunction stating Pritzker exceeded executive authority under the state constitution and Illinois Emergency Management Agency Act. That request also is improper, Coleman explained, because the 11th Amendment ensures federal courts can’t slap injunctions on state government officials based only on alleged abuse of state law.
According to his campaign website, Cruz is a Joliet native who was quarterback of two state championship football teams at Providence Catholic High School in New Lenox before going on to a career in sales and owning a construction and development business.
Cruz has been represented in the action by attorney Steven M. Wallace, of the Silver Lake Legal Group, of downstate Glen Carbon.
Judge Coleman was appointed to the federal bench in 2010 by former President Barack Obama.