By Mathew Seibert
DES MOINES, IA – The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled last week that, for the safety of students with disabilities, school mask mandate bans are discriminatory and illegal.
The court decision overturned Iowa legislation banning mask mandates last May. The bill had prevented K-12 schools in Iowa from being able to mandate the use of facemasks. It also prevented Iowa cities and counties from requiring masks in businesses.
But the courts have now agreed with parents, who filed a suit that requires communities to implement mask mandates within their schools to ensure students with disabilities have safe access to public education.
This case was brought to court by the parents of 11 children with disabilities, the ACLU of Iowa, and Duff Law Firm. The court held that the clients are entitled to the preliminary injunction ensuring school districts in Iowa are executing the correct procedures regarding masking mandates.
This will allow for their children to gain access to public education safely, claims the ACLU.
The Director of ACLU’s Disability Rights Program—Suzan Mizner—argued, “The Eighth Circuit affirmed what we’ve known to be true from the start: School mask mandate bans are discriminatory and illegal.”
Mizner further explains, “To be able to attend schools safely, many students with disabilities need their schools to require masks. At a time COVID-19 is ravaging our communities once again, this decision ensures that schools can continue to take basic public health precautions like requiring universal masking to protect their students.”
ACLU Legal Director Rita Bettis Austen said the decision the court made was a victory for children with disabilities in the state of Iowa, noting, “No parent should have to choose between their child’s health and safety and their education.”
The groups in the lawsuit are arguing that the already implemented federal civil rights laws require the schools throughout the state to be able to mandate masks to provide a safe environment for children with disabilities.
Two additional comments were made from Shira Wakschlag the Senior Director, Legal Advocacy and general counsel at The Arc of the United States, and Catherine E. Johnson the Executive Director of Disability Rights Iowa.
Wakschlag commented, “In the midst of another COVID-19 surge, the court is making it clear that students with disabilities in Iowa and nationwide are able to attend their neighborhood schools alongside their peers without putting their health and their lives at risk.”
Johnson stated, “I welcome today’s ruling that universal masking as an accommodation is both reasonable and necessary for students with disabilities to attend school in-person safely during the ongoing pandemic.”
This seems to be an absolutely ludicrous statement:
1) Friend was over here the other day with here 7-year-old son. He’d get to talking excitedly about something as kids do and his mask would slip down over his nose and eventually his mouth and this happened over and over. Are you telling me in school kids are so ‘well behaved’ and teachers so disciplinary that other children can “attend their neighborhood schools alongside their peers without putting their health and their lives at risk.” ? Call me ‘beyond skeptical’.
2) The CDC has declared that we should be wearing N-95 grade masks, and it’s pretty well accepted at this point that cloth masks are ineffective, especially past a few minutes indoors and especially to prevent the spread of Omicron. Yet nothing in this article implies that schools, the parents, the ACLU or the court have any awareness of the difference! . . . . . [nor does much of Davis]
3) I’ve talked to several people now who have driven across the country outside of the small (by land area) blue bubbles of the coasts and a few blue inland cities. The universal report is that in most of the land area of the country, masks and by appearance the virus itself, does not exist! There is no enforcement – apparently in some areas you are susceptible to being chided if you do where a mask in a public space. So are you telling me that in such areas — that I assume includes most of Iowa — that teachers who don’t believe in the ruling will enforce it, that they will be disciplined by principals who don’t believe, that kids who parents don’t believe will wear masks? Call me ‘beyond skeptical’. Much of the land area of this country is ‘done’ with Covid-19 and has been for some time.
Additionally, what is the significance of ‘children with disabilities’ ? What do disabilities have to do with this? Are these specific disabilities that are also co-morbiditys for Covid-19 ?
I am going to be very interested in watching how this plays out – if indeed there will be reporting on what actually goes on in schools, cuz who’s going to expose their own no-compliance when no one cares, except maybe via the 11 children in the lawsuit?
Seriously?!! – I wrote controversial, considered positions on masks & mandates in two articles on aspects of Covid-19 yesterday, hoping to spark some discussion. And here is the robust discussion:
#crickets#
Does anyone care about Covid-19 policy anymore? Is there even a pandemic?
Sheeesh.
Every single day we have to remind people to wear masks inside our shop. Just yesterday a man walked out when we mentioned it.
The overwhelming majority of cases in hospitals are people who were not vaccinated or boosted. Most of those chose that condition.
Mask mandates and vaccine mandates are proven methods to reduce transmission. Efforts to implement them have been opposed and blocked by Republican governors and the Republican-majority Supreme Court.
The consequence of refusing to vaccinate, and obstructing the practices that minimize transmission, has been the huge wave of Omicron infections leading to hospitalization and death rates higher than they would otherwise have been.
This story is one bright spot in the ongoing debate about this: upholding the right of disabled students to attend school in a safer manner, in the face of yet another attempt to block the school districts’ abilities to establish policies to protect their students.
By contrast, we have governors of certain states ordering school districts to abandon mask mandates.
Reasonable approaches to managing this pandemic have been flouted and obstructed. We all know who is largely responsible for this.
There’s really nothing more to be said. Now we just have to ride this out until we learn to live with it.
Trump?
Just playing-along.