South Carolina sued by ACLU on mask mandates
The American Civil Liberties Union, representing disability rights groups and parents of children with disabilities, filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday over a South Carolina law that bans school districts from requiring face masks, arguing the ban excludes vulnerable students from public schools.
The plaintiffs allege that the ban on mask mandates disproportionately affects students with underlying health conditions or disabilities, who are at risk of becoming seriously ill if they contract COVID-19.
South Carolina legislators included a provision in the state’s general budget, passed in June, that prevented school districts from using state funding to require masks in schools. But some school districts and cities have disregarded the ban and gone forward with implementing a school mask mandate.
The ban on mask mandates is in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act, the plaintiffs allege in the lawsuit.
Under the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act, public schools cannot exclude students with disabilities or segregate them unnecessarily from their peers. Schools are also required to provide reasonable modifications to allow students with disabilities to participate fully.
“By making schools a dangerous place for these students with disabilities, they are essentially forcing their parents to choose between their child’s education and their child’s health,” said Susan Mizner, director of the ACLU’S Disability Rights Project. “And that is going to exclude them from their public education.”
Offering students with disabilities or medical conditions a remote option is not a good alternative, Mizner said. Limiting medically fragile students and those with disabilities to a remote-only education denies them equal opportunity, she said.
“We know from this past year that for many, many, many students, a remote
education is not an equal education to in-person,” she said. “That would be denying them equal access to their education.”
The lawsuit names top state officials including Republican Gov. Henry Mcmaster, the attorney general and the schools superintendent, and seeks to overturn the law banning mask mandates.
Amanda Mcdougald Scott, one of nine named plaintiffs in the lawsuit, has a 5-year-old son with asthma who is too young to be vaccinated. The family was told that online learning was full for the school year that is beginning, leading them to enroll in a private school 30 minutes away.
Samantha Boevers, another plaintiff, has a child in elementary school with autism spectrum disorder, making it hard for her son to adhere to COVID-19 mitigation measures such as handwashing and social distancing. The family’s pediatrician advised them to send their son back to in-person learning only in a fully masked environment, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit from the ACLU is not the first time South Carolina’s ban on mask mandates has ended up in court. Earlier, state Attorney General Alan Wilson sued the city of Columbia, which required masks in schools after declaring a COVID-19 emergency.