Streight v. Pritzker

Overview

Streight v. Pritzker (U.S. District Court, N.D. Ill., Sept. 22, 2021): The court denied a public college student’s request to block his school’s COVID-19 testing requirement based on a claim that it was an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment. The court found that the student failed to prove he was likely to succeed on the claim. The testing requirement applies only to unvaccinated students who wish to attend classes in-person, like the plaintiff. The plaintiff claimed mandatory weekly testing for in-person attendance constituted an unreasonable search prohibited by the Fourth Amendment that put him in “imminent danger of being harmed by the government” and “in peril of being removed from the public education system.” The court disagreed, weighing the minor privacy interests implicated in the mandatory testing with the immediate and significant interest of the government in controlling COVID-19. The court emphasized that the plaintiff did not seek a vaccine exemption and had means to attend classes online, and that the college offered free, minimally invasive COVID-19 tests. Read the full decision here.

View all cases in the Judicial Trends in Public Health – October 15, 2021.

View all cases under “Constitutional Rights & the Public’s Health.”