Justice Department sees bias in class-capacity limits in N.M. private schools

Durango Herald ^ | 9/21/20 | Morgan Lee

[brownwill6767]

SANTA FE – The U.S. Justice Department sided Monday with the father of a seventh grade prep school student in a lawsuit that challenges pandemic-related limits on classroom capacity at private schools in New Mexico as more restrictive than public school guidelines.

Albuquerque-based U.S. Attorney John Anderson filed a statement of interest that argues the state is violating the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution by limiting attendance at private schools to 25% of building capacity under a public health order.

The limit is set at 50% for public schools under guidance from the Public Education Department, though only select groups of elementary school and disabled students have returned to classrooms.

[brownwill6767]

“COVID-related restrictions must be applied and implemented equally and impartially, and that simply did not happen here,” Anderson said. “There is no good reason to penalize students just because they choose to attend a private school.”

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The support letter also was signed by Justice Department attorney Eric Drieband of the civil rights division.

The initial lawsuit was filed earlier this month by Douglas Peterson, the father of a student at Albuquerque Academy, after the school opted for online instruction in response to the state’s public health order. The lawsuit asserts that the school could have moved forward with classroom instruction if it had the same 50% capacity limit as public schools. Peterson is seeking a restraining order and preliminary injunction to lift the 25% capacity limit.

“This case raises issues of national public importance regarding the interplay between the government’s compelling interest in protecting public health and safety from COVID-19 and parents’ fundamental right to direct the upbringing of their children through education,” says the Justice Department letter, which also notes that daycare centers can operate at 100% of capacity.

[Seruzawa]

Well, Duh. Public schools look terrible compared to private schools. Since the NEA can’t legally kill all the people who run private schools they look for sneaky underhanded ways to wreck them. The thought that they would be thanked and lauded and praised for doing as good of a job as the private schools would never cross their sick, twisted little minds. Nope. Try to destroy them. Govt at its finest.

[livius]

Glad they’re taking it up. The states (CA too, and others, I think) want to limit private and religious schools because those schools actually are opening up again, while the union controlled public school teachers are sending each other pictures of skeletons and refusing to go back to the classrooms because, you know, “the virus.” But they still want their paychecks.