US Education Dept. Opens Probe Against States Barring Masks in Schools
19:36 GMT 30.08.2021 (Updated: 13:23 GMT 06.08.2022)
© REUTERS / MARCO BELLO
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WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The Education Department has opened a civil probe against five US states that have barred mask mandates in schools, a circular showed Monday, amid resistance against warnings by health officials that children were vulnerable to a renewed COVID-19 surge in the country despite half of the population being vaccinated.
The Education Department circular, signed by its Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Suzanne Goldberg, told the state education boards of Utah, Oklahoma, Iowa, Tennessee and South Carolina that they were being investigated for possible violation of individual rights by the department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR).
“OCR’s investigation will focus on whether, in light of this policy, students with disabilities who are at heightened risk for severe illness from COVID-19 are prevented from safely returning to in-person education, in violation of Federal law,” the circular said.
The OCR investigation follows up on President Joe Biden’s promise earlier this month that the Education Department would use its authority to try to stop states from interfering with school districts that wished to mandate masks for the personal safety of school-going children.
Governors of the five states that were being investigated — all run by rival Republican administrations opposed to Biden’s — have argued that masking should be a personal choice for parents and families. The disputes have escalated in recent months amid a COVID-19 resurgence via the Delta variant affecting mostly unvaccinated people largely in Republican-run states.
#Breaking: Iowa is one of the five states the Department of Education is opening investigations into regarding masks bans.
— Ethan Stein (@EthanSteinTV) August 30, 2021
Full Story: https://t.co/Owq62v8Wrb pic.twitter.com/LNIc60gvNE
More than half of the US population has received at least one dose each of a COVID-19 vaccination, prompting Biden to call the recent resurgence of coronavirus cases in the country as “the pandemic of the unvaccinated."
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement on Monday that his agency has been flooded with complaints from parents wishing for mask mandates to protect their children who were too young to be vaccinated.
27 August 2021, 20:09 GMT
“It’s simply unacceptable that state leaders are putting politics over the health and education of the students they took an oath to serve,” Cardona said. “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.”
The circular sent to the state education boards on Monday noted significant increases in coronavirus cases among children, including those under age 12 who are not yet eligible for vaccination.
