Federal Court Upholds Texas Ban on School Mask Mandates

The past two and a half years have shown that common sense, reason and rationality have all but disappeared from many parts of the United States.

The obsessive focus on forcibly masking children has been one of the clearest indicators of how completely public health officials and politicians have severed their connection to reality.

Just recently, and contrary to all available evidence, school mask mandates returned to several parts of the country, including Louisville and San Diego:

Thankfully, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order last year banning mask mandates by government entities, cities, local jurisdictions and public health authorities:

"For public schools, he said, 'no student, teacher, parent, or other staff member or visitor can be required to wear a mask while on campus.'"

This decision followed the actual science showing that mask mandates are completely ineffective and ultimately harmful.

Of course, in response, multiple lawsuits were brought against the order due to profound, prolific misinformation from public health authorities and supposed "experts."

But in an encouraging and rare win for a return to sanity, a recent court decision gave Abbott a win allowing the mask mandate ban to continue.

The court case mostly revolved around potential ADA issues, but the judge was not convinced that the plaintiff's arguments were valid:

"It is plainly within the State’s power to remove one possible accommodation from consideration, so long as other reasonable options remain. And it is transparently wrong to equate the State’s course of action with “enying the children individualized assessment of their needs.” Here, all agree plaintiffs have physical access to their classrooms. All agree all seven schools take a multi-pronged approach to COVID-19 mitigation. All agree plaintiffs, their classmates, and their teachers are welcome to wear masks and ask those around them to wear masks. All agree plaintiffs presented zero evidence that anyone—let alone “individual working constantly with a disabled child,” would refuse a request to wear a mask or take comparable safety measures while working closely with a vulnerable student. And all agree at least some of the plaintiffs are committed to attending in-person classes, whether or not their schools mandate masks. Therefore, even if plaintiffs could recharacterize their injury as denial of reasonable access to schools, plaintiffs failed to show they have suffered or certainly will suffer such an injury."

Mask mandates have repeatedly been proven to have no demonstrable benefit, and the executive order was well justified.

In fact, given the proclivities of local health authorities and cowardice of school administrators, it's the only way to ensure that students are able to experience permanent normal schooling. Otherwise children will face a permanent, rolling threat of ineffective forced masking in many jurisdictions.

At least in this one incidence, a federal court handed Texas a win for reality and common sense.