Texas takes ban on school mask mandates to state Supreme Court

Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, whose statewide ban on mask mandates has drawn federal criticism and in some COVID19-stricken areas fury, is taking his battle against one of the country’s most basic pandemic precautions to the state’s highest court.

Late Friday, after Abbott’s ban suffered at least three legal setbacks, the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, said he was asking the state Supreme Court to consider Abbott’s policies. “The rule of law will decide,” he wrote in a tweet.

The escalating battle comes as schools around the country prepare to open for the fall semester, with tens of millions of children under 12 ineligible for vaccination and as hospitalizations of young people have been increasing amid the spread of the highly transmissible delta variant.

Partisan tensions have been rising over whether students, teachers and school staff members should be required to wear masks. Some Republicans have cast mask rules as an infringement on parental rights, and many Democrats contend that they are a matter of public health.

Abbott has faced a series of legal challenges and defiant local mask mandates since he signed an executive order in July barring mandates for both masks and vaccinations.

The order came two days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revised its guidance to urge much more widespread masking, acting on new data that showed fully vaccinated people infected with the delta variant — a situation the agency considers comparatively rare — could spread the virus as easily as unvaccinated people.

The setbacks for Abbott on Friday were in areas with Democratic leaders, rampant coronavirus cases and rising hospitalizations. Vaccinations in Texas lag many other states, and deaths also are rising, though far more slowly than in prior waves, given that the majority of the oldest and most vulnerable residents are now fully vaccinated.

A state district judge gave Harris County and several school districts across the state temporary permission to put in effect safety measures, including mask mandates.

In San Antonio, the state’s 4th Court of Appeals denied Abbott’s challenge to an earlier ruling upholding a school mask mandate for Bexar County. Average new daily cases are up 72% from two weeks ago there, and hospitalizations are up 142%.

Shortly after the San Antonio court issued its ruling, the 5th Court of Appeals in Dallas denied Abbott’s challenge to a county official’s mask mandate for public schools, universities and businesses. Average daily cases in Dallas County have risen 65% over the past two weeks, and hospitalizations have nearly doubled.

The official who issued that order, Clay Jenkins, praised the ruling. “We should all be together; Team Human v Virus,” he wrote on Twitter. “I’ll keep following the doctor’s advise and work with anyone to beat #COVID19.”

Scores of Texas counties have recorded even higher rates of new cases and hospitalizations than those involved in the rulings.

Abbott came under sharp federal criticism Friday, along with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who banned school mask mandates a day after Abbott issued his executive order.

The secretary of education, Miguel Cardona, sent letters to the governors and their education commissioners, writing that he was concerned about recent executive actions taken by both governors.

Those orders, he wrote, prohibited districts from “voluntarily adopting science-based strategies for preventing the spread of COVID-19 that are aligned with the guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” like universal masking. The letters were made public late Friday.

Cardona also expressed support for districts in both states that have defied the governors’ orders.

“The department stands with these dedicated educators who are working to safely reopen schools and maintain safe in-person instruction,” Cardona wrote.