Lawsuit To Block School Mask Mandates Filed By Princeton Attorney

PRINCETON, NJ — Princeton-based attorney Bruce Afran has filed a lawsuit against Gov. Phil Murphy to block any mask mandates that might be reinstated ahead of the fall school year.

Afran represents parents who are part of the group Free NJ Kids. Apart from Murphy, Commissioner of Health Judith M Persichilli and Commissioner of Education Angelica Allen-McMillan have been named in the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District court.

According to the lawsuit, mandatory “wearing of masks by schoolchildren burdens and impairs protected speech rights,” and the mandatory use of plexiglass dividers “confines and imprisons children, separates them from their friends and teachers and introduces an unnatural form of control upon children in the classroom without parental consent.”

In the lawsuit, Afran argues that children were singled out and chastised for not wearing their masks correctly.

“Children are regularly chastised by teachers if their masks slip below their nose or if masks are not adjusted properly; children are regularly and routinely threatened with disciplinary write-ups if they do not adjust their masks to a 'correct' usage,” the lawsuit said.

Although New Jersey eliminated mask and social distancing mandates in May, children in New Jersey’s public schools "have continued to be made subject to mandates that they must wear face masks and engage in social distancing and other isolating measures," the lawsuit said.

Afran also argued that social distancing measures “burden and prevent ordinary communication and association.”

Parents and children represented in the lawsuit are from Bordentown, Mahwah, Barnegat, West Orange, Middletown, Sparta among other townships.

Currently, there are no statewide mask mandates for New Jersey schools in the fall. Murphy has left the decision up to individual school districts.

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