OTTAWA COUNTY, MI – Libertas Christian School has asked a federal appellate court for an emergency injunction against county health officials who closed the school for failing to comply with coronavirus orders, including mask wearing.
The school contends that “shut down orders” are unconstitutional.
“The policymakers and prosecutors have improperly merged to become a single bad actor and these self-executed orders have deprived Libertas and its parents of their civil liberties under the U.S. and Michigan Constitutions, including the near-absolute right to educate and discipline their own children in their chosen methods and eliminated the parents’ chosen mode of daily religious and academic exercises for their children,” Grand Rapids attorney Ian Northon said, in a 20-page document filed with the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.
Libertas said the government violated rights to religious freedom under the First Amendment.
U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney in Kalamazoo last week denied a Libertas request for immediate relief after the Ottawa County Department of Public Health said the school refused to provide student information for contact tracing after two teachers tested positive for COVID-19.
Health officials also said students were not required to wear masks or distance socially. The school was closed Oct. 23 for a quarantine period, ending Friday, Nov. 5, following a cease-and-desist order by the county.
Libertas asked the appeals court to prevent the government from enforcing emergency orders that restrict gatherings, require masks and treat “Libertas and other Christian schools worse than similarly situated business owners, government officials, factory owners, and proprietors of restaurants engaged in comparable secular conduct.”
Robert Gordon, director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, issued emergency public-health orders that required mask-wearing and limits on the size of public gatherings after the state Supreme Court struck down Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s power to issue such orders.
Maloney, the federal judge, noted that Libertas did not subpoena Gordon or Whitmer to testify at a recent hearing.
“The Court is reluctant to enjoin a statewide emergency order or hold a state statute unconstitutional without hearing from any state-level official,” he said in a written opinion.
He said he did not to rule on First Amendment claims as long as the school was closed for a proper reason not related to the constitutional claims. The school was closed for failing to provide student information for contact tracing, not because students did not wear masks, the judge said.
Ottawa County health officials said Libertas is the only school of over 100 parochial, public and private schools in the county to ignore the mask mandate. The county says Libertas can open if it requires masks in classrooms but the federal judge said that the county may have to file a state lawsuit over masks.
Attorney Douglas Van Essen, representing the county, said the county’s deputy health administrator, Marcia Mansaray, has treated Libertas the same as any other school.
“All that she is doing is trying to hold Libertas to the same masking, gathering, COVID-19 reporting and cooperation with contact tracing rules and regulations to which every other school in Ottawa County is adhering,” he wrote in court records.
Libertas contends the federal judge “misapprehended” his responsibility to resolve the constitutional issues and is “effectively locking Libertas out of the federal court indefinitely.”
Northon, the school lawyer, said that the school and health officials “hotly dispute some of the facts about COVID-19 and contact tracing. But the facts causing alleged constitutional issues are not in dispute.”
He asked for an injunction while the school’s appeal of the federal judge’s order is underway.
The school and its members “have sincerely held religious beliefs burdened by (the government’s) Emergency Orders,” he said.
“The Emergency Orders carve out several exceptions for activities such as voting, dining, and working in factories, but they do not exempt (Libertas’) First Amendment rights to freely exercise their religion, to discipline, raise and (educate) their children, and to associate and assemble on church owned property for school or chapel,” Northon wrote.
He said that the school had to close because of “selective enforcement of the emergency orders.”
Read more:
Christian school asks judge to re-open after Ottawa County cites coronavirus concerns
Christian school closed over COVID-19 violations could reopen if it agrees to mask mandate
Court denies immediate relief to Christian school closed for not following coronavirus orders
