By WMBD-TV
PEORIA – A lawsuit filed in May by Illinois State University students protesting the ongoing conflict in Gaza has been moved to federal court.
And within a day, the seven students involved have asked, through their attorney, for a judge to bar the school from taking further action against them while the suit is pending.
The move from McLean County Circuit Court to U.S. District Court in Peoria was done by the defendants who are the representatives of the university. Such a move is not uncommon when one side thinks the issues at hand are better addressed by a federal judge.
The students — Steve Lazaroff, 40, Jomareun Richardson, 21, Kevin Dion, 20, Joseph Bloom-Boedefeld, 21 and Rebekah Mangels, 23, Aiden Marcikic, 20, and Daniel Kimball, 20 — were arrested on May 3 following a meeting with ISU president Aondover Tarhule at Hovey Hall over the war in Gaza in which the defendants would not leave the premises after the building closed.
They were charged with misdemeanor trespassing. Those cases are still pending in McLean County Circuit Court. If found guilty, they could face up to 1 year in jail and/or a $2,500 fine.
But the students also sued the school, Tarhule, the board of trustees and other officials in mid–May. The suit, which is the one that has been moved to federal court, alleges violations of the students’ 1st Amendment rights among other things.
Hovey Hall has a long history of being the site of protests and First Amendment activity, they claim in court records.
The suit seeks to have the students’ suspensions removed as well as the trespassing cases. They also seek at least $50,000 in damages, which is a statutory amount.
In their petition for a temporary restraining order, the students are asking the judge to stop the university form having them write an essay on how to conduct a protest within the confines of the university’s policies.
“Defendants will suffer no prejudice whatsoever from Plaintiffs not writing an essay. They
will suffer no hardship from providing the service for which Plaintiffs have paid handsomely in
tuition. No damage will be done to Defendants at all from preserving the status quo until this
litigation is complete. On the other hand, the Plaintiffs will suffer greatly from the loss of their
constitutional rights,” according to the petition.
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