A federal judge struck down Texas’ ban on mask mandates in schools, ruling that it violates The Americans with Disabilities Act.
“The spread of COVID-19 poses an even greater risk for children with special health needs,” Judge Lee Yeakel wrote in Wednesday’s decision. “Children with certain underlying conditions who contract COVID-19 are more likely to experience severe acute biological effects and to require admission to a hospital and the hospital’s intensive-care unit. This includes children with conditions including, Down syndrome, organ transplants, lung conditions, heart conditions, and weakened immune systems.”
Yeakel concluded, “The evidence presented by Plaintiffs establishes that Plaintiffs are being denied the benefits of in-person learning on an equal basis as their peers without disabilities.”
Yeakal’s ruling invalidates an executive order from Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, that prevented schools from requiring mask wearing in schools. Ken Paxton, Texas’ Attorney General, has already initiated lawsuits against 15 school districts in an attempt to overturn their mandates.
But now Texas school districts can set their own masking policies.
Paxton tweeted that he was considering an appeal, but Yeakal’s decision has broad implications. NPR reports:
Wednesday’s ruling in Texas could have implications in other states — including Arizona, Iowa, Florida, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah — which have also banned mask mandates for students.
The Texas Tribune provides details:
The advocacy group, Disability Rights Texas, filed the federal lawsuit on behalf of several Texan families in late August against Abbott, Paxton and Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath. It states that the governor’s order and the TEA’s enforcement of it deny children with disabilities access to public education as they are at high risk of illness and death from the virus.
Kym Davis Rogers, litigation attorney with Disability Rights Texas, said in a statement that the court found that Texas is not above federal law and state officials cannot prevent school districts from providing accommodations to students who are especially vulnerable to the risks of COVID-19.
“No student should be forced to make the choice of forfeiting their education or risking their health, and now they won’t have to,” Rogers said.
In his decision, Yeakel noted that more than 200,000 Texas school children contracted COVID-19 between the beginning of the term and the end of October. He wrote that Abbott’s executive order excluded “disabled children from participating in and denies them the benefits of public schools’ programs, services, and activities to which they are entitled.”
The New York Times adds:
The Justice Department signaled support for the lawsuit against the state in September, saying in a formal statement that “even if their local school districts offered them the option of virtual learning,” the ban still violated the rights of students with disabilities.