The mother of a female soccer player at Chicago’s Whitney Young High School has sued Chicago Public Schools, challenging the district’s rule requiring student athletes who have not gotten Covid shots to submit to regular Covid testing to be allowed to continue to play school sports.
On May 4, attorney Lucas Fuksa filed suit in Cook County Circuit Court on behalf of Courtney Connolly and her daughter, identified in the complaint only as M.C.
The lawsuit names as defendants Chicago Public School District 299 and CPS CEO Pedro Martinez.
According to the lawsuit, M.C. played on the varsity women’s soccer team at Whitney Young High School this spring. In that time, she participated in two months of preseason practices, and in 10 games.
However, since late April, she has been barred from participating in practices and games, for refusing to submit to Covid testing through CPS’ chosen testing vendor. That vendor is identified in the complaint as Color Health Inc. According to published reports, Color Health, a Silicon Valley-based genetics testing firm expanded into a nationwide Covid testing operation in late 2021, securing Covid screening contracts with corporations, governments and other institutional employers and schools across the country.
According to the complaint, Connolly secured a Covid test for her daughter from an outside vendor, showing her daughter to have tested negative. However, CPS refused to accept that result, until they were contacted by Fuksa, who was representing Connolly and M.C.
CPS eventually relented to accept M.C.’s negative Covid test result, but only for one time. After that, CPS said they would require M.C. to test exclusively with Color Health, or not be allowed to play soccer at Whitney Young.
Connolly and Fuksa responded by filing suit.
According to the lawsuit, CPS’ Covid testing policies violated M.C.’s rights under state public health law.
The plaintiffs assert CPS has exceeded its authority under state law, by using mandatory Covid testing as a way to impose illegal modified quarantine on unvaccinated students.
And they assert, the policies are discriminatory, as CPS forces only students who have not received a Covid vaccines to submit to the testing mandate. Vaccinated students are allowed to continue to play without testing, even though people who are considered fully vaccinated can still become infected with Covid and transmit the virus to others.
“The Policy discriminates against unvaccinated student athletes while wholly ignoring the vaccinated student athletes and statements by the CDC that ‘breakthrough infections are to be expected’ and data as of 2021 released by the CDC showing that vaccinated people infected with the delta variant can carry detectable viral loads similar to those of people who are unvaccinated,” the plaintiffs wrote in their complaint.
The complaint asserts this discrimination violates both CPS’ own so-called “Student Bill of Rights,” and Illinois’ Health Care Right of Conscience Act.
The Student Bill of Rights states: ‘Every student has a right to … participate in activities clubs, and organizations (sic) … or teams at their school without discrimination.”
The state Conscience law further “provides that the Parents and the Child have a right to object or refuse to obtain, receive, or accept the delivery of health care services … and to prohibit forms of discrimination by reasons of their refusing to act contrary to their conscience or conscientious convictions in refusing to obtain health care services.”
The complaint notes the Conscience law specifically defines health care to include testing.
Further, the lawsuit asserts CPS’ rule requiring students to test exclusively with CPS’ approved vendor contradicts the statements published by CPS at the time the district introduced the Covid testing mandate for student athletes in the fall of 2021.
In a “Frequently Asked Questions” section published by CPS to explain the testing mandate, CPS said: “The preferred method of providing proof of testing compliance is to participate in CPS sponsored testing opportunities throughout the district. Outside of CPS sponsored testing, unvaccinated staff and student athletes may also participate in non CPS-sponsored testing but must provide proof of testing.”
According to the complaint, M.C. provided proof of her negative test, and CPS initially rejected her test result.
CPS allegedly told Fuksa that CPS now has a policy in place allowing student athletes to “submit to outside testing only once per season.”
“Quite simply, (CPS) and Defendant Martinez have infringed upon the lawful right of the Child and Parent to be free to choose for themselves what health and safety measures they feel are appropriate for the Child, absent an order from this Court to the contrary,” the plaintiffs wrote in their complaint.
The plaintiffs are seeking an injunction barring CPS from continuing to enforce the testing mandate against M.C.; and an order declaring CPS’ policies violate the due process protections of the state public health law, and the anti-discrimination provisions of the state’s Conscience law and CPS’ Student Bill of Rights.