The Coalition Opposing Governmental Secrecy and Metric Media LLC filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against Community Consolidated School District 89 in DuPage County Circuit Court, seeking the district’s records on religious-accommodation policies, including accommodations related to Ramadan observance.
The suit was filed July 30 in the Circuit Court of the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit, DuPage County, Chancery Division, according to court records (Case No. 2026CH000224). The plaintiffs are asking the court to force Community Consolidated School District 89 to comply with the Illinois Freedom of Information Act and produce the requested records.
According to the complaint, the plaintiffs say the records matter to determine whether the district’s policies originate with elected officials and administrators or with outside political or religious organizations. The filing states that where a school district applies a religion-specific accommodation framework without corresponding treatment of other faiths, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment is “directly implicated.” It states that without the requested records, the public cannot assess whether the district administers policy neutrally.
The filing alleges that a public body’s total non-response to a records request removes even the threshold fact of whether responsive records exist, leaving the public unable to begin oversight. It contends that such silence operates as an unstated denial that identifies no exemption and offers no partial release. The complaint says a proper response would have told the requester of the right to contact the Public Access Counselor and to sue, and it refers to the pattern as “Non-Responsiveness.”
Community Consolidated School District 89 is a regular public school district based in Glen Ellyn, in DuPage County, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. The federal database lists the district as operating five schools with a grade span of prekindergarten through grade eight. Community Consolidated School District 89 is the defendant named in the lawsuit.
