Four parents of Illinois high school athletes filed a lawsuit against Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and the Illinois High School Association in La Salle County Court on Monday.
The suit claims that Pritzker’s cancellation of the winter high school sports season “is an unconstitutional violation of the Plaintiffs right to equal protection under the Constitution of the State of Illinois.” The suit seeks to bar Pritzker and the IHSA from enforcing the cancellation of the winter sports season.
“[Pritzker] is using this emergency statute to create these restrictions,” said Laura Grochocki, the attorney for the plaintiffs. “They are supposed to have a rational basis. We are asking why high school sports have the restrictions and why college sports and pro sports do not. Is there a rational basis for the restrictions on high schools? Or is there something else at work here, why they are allowed to play and high schools are not?”
Trevor Till, the son of lead plaintiff Lisa Moore, took his own life in Champaign in late October. He graduated from Seneca in June. Moore ran cross country and track, was class president and participated in multiple school activities.
According to the suit “Trevor was devastated that he didn’t have his senior year track and pole vaulting season. The final blow was when winter sports were canceled. Trevor committed suicide on October 21, 2020, a proximate cause of which was the Governor Pritzker’s restrictions on high school sports programs.”
Kate Benton, another plaintiff, is the mother of two athletes at Downers Grove North. According to the suit her two children have been unable to be seen by college recruiters due to the cancellation of winter sports. Benton’s daughter, a basketball and softball player, “has suffered socially with no contact with peers, has lost most of her friends and rarely leaves the house” according to the suit.
“We are focusing on a very narrow issue,” Grochocki said. “We just want clarification from the courts on the way they are viewing this. If they were to rule against us it would be a pretty significant difference in how they have ruled on equal protection cases in the past.”
Several lawsuits have been filed against Pritzker over his COVID-19 restrictions, very few have met with any success. A federal lawsuit against the IHSA was dropped in early October.
The IHSA declined to comment at this time. Pritzker’s office has not responded to a request for comment.
Read the full suit here: Moore Lisa M vs. Pritzker, IHSA
Pritzker and the Illinois Department of Public Health put basketball and other high- and medium-risk winter sports on hold in late October and said they wouldn’t be played until spring.
“We aren’t saying these sports won’t be played,” Pritzker said in October. “We are delaying the play of these sports. We are saying do training, do conditioning. Even the high-risk sports, there are things they can do. It’s not like we are shutting the sports down. But these are all being moved into the spring with the hope that we will be seeing vaccines and treatments that will be effective.”
The IHSA attempted to plow forward and play basketball as scheduled, but insurance companies wouldn’t insure the schools, forcing superintendents and school boards to opt out of the IHSA’s season.
