At the beginning of the school year, lawyer Thomas DeVore took up the case of a bunch of “patriot” parents who felt their children were being persecuted because they were being asked to wear a mask to school to help prevent the spread of COVID. About 700 parents from school districts throughout Illinois, including Mahomet-Seymour, joined the lawsuit.
If DeVore’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he’s been filing lawsuits against Governor Pritzker since the beginning of the pandemic, most notably one in which he represented State Senator and gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey, who wanted there to be no COVID mitigations.
A Sangamon County judge granted a somewhat confusing temporary restraining order this weekend, leading to many districts, including Mahomet-Seymour, to immediately go mask optional beginning this week. Others, such as Danville, cancelled school today because they don’t know what to do about the order. Unit 4 and District 116 were not specifically named in the lawsuit, so they will be continuing to require masks.
The TRO also indicates that students and staff who are close contacts but asymptomatic cannot be excluded from school without “due process”, and unvaccinated staff should not have to submit to testing without “due process.”
The state is appealing the order.
You can find the full list of how area schools are reacting in this News-Gazette article.
Top photo from Mahomet Daily.
