The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) is investigating Tennessee along with four other states to determine whether statewide prohibitions on universal indoor masking discriminates against students with disabilities.
In a letter to Tennessee’s Commissioner of Education Penny Schwinn, Suzanne Goldberg, the department of education’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights, informed that the investigation would explore if Tennessee’s policy that allows parents to opt out of school mask mandates prevents students with disabilities who have higher risk of severe illness from Covid-19.
Gov. Bill Lee issued Executive Order No. 84 earlier this month allowing Tennessee parents to opt their child out of school mask mandates regardless of school districts policy.
Goldberg said OCR is concerned that this policy may be preventing schools from meeting their legal obligations not to discriminate based on disability and to provide equal educational opportunities.
“The Department has heard from parents from across the country — particularly parents of students with disabilities and with underlying medical conditions — about how state bans on universal indoor masking are putting their children at risk and preventing them from accessing in-person learning equally,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a press release. “It’s simply unacceptable that state leaders are putting politics over the health and education of the students they took an oath to serve.
“The Department will fight to protect every student’s right to access in-person learning safely and the rights of local educators to put in place policies that allow all students to return to the classroom full-time in-person safely this fall.”
Following the announcement of the investigation, Tennessee Senator Raumesh Akbari who represents the Memphis area, urged Lee to rescind his executive order.
“Gov. Bill Lee’s administration should immediately suspend its order negating local mask rules in schools until this federal investigation concludes,” Akbari said. “All our students, including those who have underlying health conditions, deserve access to safe learning conditions.”
Other states being investigated include Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Utah.
This comes days after a class action lawsuit was filed against Gov. Bill Lee and Shelby County alleging that allowing students to opt out of the mask mandate violates the Americans with Disability Act.
The plaintiffs, two Shelby County families, claim that Executive Order No 84 forces parents of children with disabilities “to make the impossible decision of deciding whether to pull their children out of in-person learning or risk severe reactions or death as a result of COVID-19.” This is a “brutal choice,” the lawsuit reads.
“Excluding children from the public school classrooms because of a disability is precisely the type of discrimination and segregation that the ADA and its amendments aim to prevent and specifically prohibit,” the lawsuit reads.
The plaintiffs are asking the court to block the governor from enforcing Executive Order No. 84, while requiring Shelby County to enforce the countywide mask mandate in schools.
Read the full complaint here
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