It's illegal for Illinois public schools to require their students to submit to mandatory COVID-19 testing, or to take COVID-19 vaccine jabs.
That's according to internal Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) emails revealed Tuesday via a Freedom of Information (FOIA) request.
Parents' Rights Litigation Fund Executive Director James R. Holderman, III of Burr Ridge sent the FOIA request and obtained the emails, publishing them on Twitter.
In them, ISBE spokesman Jackie Matthews responds to a February 2021 inquiry from ABC-7 Chicago television reporter Jesse R. Kirsch, asking whether mandatory testing of students is legal.
"At this time, the specific statutory/regulatory language that we believe is necessary to compel such testing/vaccination does not exist," Matthews wrote in her response. "Stated another way, we do not know of any authority for a school district to mandate vaccination for in-person attendance."
Matthews then forwarded the exchange with Kirsch to her boss, ISBE Communications Director Irma Snopek, then-Illinois Deputy Governor for Education Jesse Ruiz, then-ISBE General Counsel Trisha Olson, State Schools Superintendent Carmen Ayala and four press aides to Gov. J.B. Pritzker-- Press Secretary Jordan Abudayyeh, Communications Director Emily Bittner, Deputy Communications Director Jason Rubin and Associate Communications Director Charity Jackson Greene.
"I am flagging the media inquiry below," she wrote. "I responded with the current response that ISBE has previously sent publicly that we do not know of any authority for a school district to mandate testing as a condition of in-person attendance."
Kirsch's Feb. 25, 2021 story on mandatory saliva testing at Elmhurst School District 205 published the full ISBE statement, but also paraphrased Matthews' response as stating the Illinois State Board of Education said it doesn't know of any law giving school districts authority to mandate testing, but the state board doesn't say this would be illegal either."
Matthews doesn't say in her email statement to Ruiz that "the state board doesn't say (mandatory saliva testing) would be illegal."
On Sept. 19, Pritzker issued a mandatory order requiring all higher education and health care workers to take a Covid-19 vaccine jab or submit to weekly testing.
Illinois' Health Care Right of Conscience Act, last amended in 2016, says "it shall be unlawful for any public official, guardian, agency, institution or entity to deny any form of aid, assistance or benefits or to condition the reception in any way of any form of aid, assistance or benefits, or in any other manner to coerce, disqualify or discriminate against any person, otherwise entitled to such aid, assistance or benefits, because that person refuses to obtain, receive, accept, perform, assist, counsel, suggest, recommend, refer or participate in any way in any form of health care services contrary to his or her conscience.”
The act allows anyone injured by violation of this act to sue, stating they "shall recover threefold the actual damages, including pain and suffering, sustained by such person... the costs of the suit and reasonable attorney's fees."
"In no case shall recovery be less than $2,500 for each violation in addition to costs of the suit and reasonable attorney's fees," the act says.
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