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Students wearing masks get their temperature taken before entering their school.
When governors and state legislators impose bans on mask mandates in schools, they’re being jerks just because they can. Maybe it gives them some sort of cheap thrill to show that they can push people around, because there is no other reason to take such ridiculous action.
And what a waste of time and energy it is to have to fight back against jerks like these. It’s as frustrating as arguing with your drunk, fascist uncle at Thanksgiving dinner. Where do you even begin to address the nonsense?
The bans may be preventing schools “from providing an equal educational opportunity to students with disabilities who are at heightened risk of severe illness from COVID-19.”
But fight back we must. Because unlike your uncle, these jerks have the power to take actions that hurt people. And the people they stand to hurt most are children with disabilities, because, obviously, they are very vulnerable to contracting and being wrecked by COVID-19 if they’re forced to go to school where people feel no need to take any precautions.
So it is on their behalf that successful resistance to this silliness has emerged.
In May, Iowa’s Republican Governor Kim Reynolds signed legislation banning local school districts from implementing universal mask policies on school property. Shortly after the school year began, the Arc of Iowa, an organization that “promotes and protects the human rights of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities,” joined the ACLU in filing a federal lawsuit on behalf of several Iowa disabled students.
The suit charged that Reynolds’s policy violated the Americans With Disabilities Act as it subjected these students to an unnecessary health burden just for attending school. The lawsuit asked for a temporary restraining order stopping enforcement of the law, which the judge granted.
Families of disabled students in Florida, Texas, South Carolina, and Tennessee have also filed suits challenging mask mandate restrictions. It’s hilariously ironic that the executive order issued by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis restricting school mask mandates says one of its goals is to “protect children with disabilities or health conditions who would be harmed by certain protocols such as face masking requirements.”
Also at the beginning of the school year, the Office of Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education sent a letter to the state education director in Iowa, informing her that the office would be conducting an investigation to determine if the school mask mandate violates the ADA.
The DOE also sent letters to the state education directors of Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah, where similar school mask mandate bans were put in place. The letters expressed concern that the bans may be preventing schools “from providing an equal educational opportunity to students with disabilities who are at heightened risk of severe illness from COVID-19.”
Let’s hope that all of these efforts are successful in fighting back against this mask-banning abuse of power, so the rest of us won’t have to.