Call it a preemptive strike: A group of parents filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block Gov. Phil Murphy from reimposing a statewide mask mandate on schoolchildren when classes resume this fall, claiming it violates students’ constitutional rights. Murphy has said he has no plans to do that, though he reserved the right to reconsider if cases of COVID-19 kept climbing.
Whether the court would rule before the governor decides to act, the case assumed bitterly political overtones Wednesday, with the plaintiffs’ attorney claiming that Murphy would bow to pressure from New Jersey’s powerful teachers union, and that “…children are being used in a sense as tools, basically in a great experiment.”
