A lawsuit filed Tuesday against Gov. Gavin Newsom and administration officials alleges that the governor's statewide order that schools must meet certain public health criteria before being allowed to hold in-person classes is unconstitutional.
The suit, filed by the conservative nonprofit Center for American Liberty on behalf of nine parents and one child, claims that the governor’s restrictions prevent children from “receiving equal access to meaningful education.”
At a press conference Tuesday, the Center’s CEO Harmeet Dhillon said that the lack of in-person instruction disadvantages “the vast majority of children in California — middle class children, children from minority backgrounds, children with independent education programs to help them learn because of their special needs and children who have other struggles in the household.”
“All of these children we saw this spring semester of this year were failed by the state of California and its educational plans,” Dhillon added, referring to the statewide shutdown of school campuses due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Newsom administration did not immediately respond to KQED’s request for comment.