In an ironic twist on the old Republican claim to be the protectors of “local control” in schools, Republican politicians across America are trying to prohibit school districts from mandating that students mask up against the coronavirus. And who is rising to protect the right of local districts to make that decision for themselves? None other than the Biden administration.
President Joe Biden last week suggested federal pandemic relief funds could be given directly to school districts to “backfill” the salaries of school officials facing punitive salary cuts from red-state leaders over their mask mandates. The administration is also raising the possibility of using federal civil rights laws to defend schools’ power to protect their most vulnerable students. It’s a sad commentary that the health and very lives of students are now under assault from red-state politicians — most recently Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt — to the point that the federal government has to defend them.
Even as the delta variant of the coronavirus is hitting younger victims in record numbers, politicians in at least eight red states, mostly notably Florida and Texas, have moved to prohibit local school districts from enforcing mask mandates among students.
