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South Carolina school districts can continue to decide whether to require masks in schools after the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied Gov. Henry McMaster’s request to overturn the order blocking state officials and certain school districts from enforcing the General Assembly’s school mask ban.
McMaster and Attorney General Alan Wilson were appealing a decision in a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of nine parents of children with disabilities who said their children couldn’t attend school safely if masks aren’t required since COVID-19 poses a greater risk to their health.
A district judge agreed with the parents in September and blocked enforcement of the state’s budget-included rule.
In the 2-1 opinion issued Jan. 25, the appeals court dismissed McMaster and Wilson from the case, saying the parents didn’t actually have standing to sue the two men. But the court’s order still applies to Superintendent Molly Spearman and the seven school districts named in the suit, including Charleston and Greenville.
Effectively, this means school districts statewide can continue to decide whether to require masks.
Attorneys for the families chalked the appeals court’s decision as a win.
“This ruling is an important victory for the disability rights community,” attorney Adam Protheroe said in a statement. The state’s budget rule “was a barrier to protecting children with disabilities. The district court removed that barrier and, for all practical purposes, that decision stands.”
McMaster has been an outspoken opponent of school mask requirements, vowing to take the fight to the U.S. Supreme Court. He believes parents should decide whether a child wears a mask.
A spokesman for McMaster did not respond to a request for comment on the appeal court’s decision.
In June 2021 the South Carolina Legislature added a one-year provision to the 2021-22 budget saying that if school districts mandated masks they risked losing their state funding. When lawmakers voted on it, COVID-19 cases were low.
But cases began rising again in July as the delta variant began sweeping through the state.
Some districts decided to require masks despite a warning from Spearman that doing so would put state funding in jeopardy.
Last September the S.C. Supreme Court heard two separate cases involving the budget rule, including one brought by Wilson against the City of Columbia after it tried to require masks in schools through local ordinances. In both cases, the court said the budget rule was constitutional.
The federal court order on the federal ACLU case came a few days after the second of the state cases was decided and opened the door for districts to require masks.
McMaster and Wilson appealed almost immediately. They objected on multiple grounds, arguing that the district court ruling essentially created a federal mask mandate in schools, and that the parents didn’t have grounds to challenge the budget rule under the disability rights act.
During arguments in December, attorneys for the state said the budget rule doesn’t actually ban masks, contrary to how state officials described the rule previously.
The appeals court’s ruling deals largely with McMaster and Wilson’s standing in the case, not the arguments for or against masks in schools. The majority opinion determined the parents didn’t have standing to sue the two men and that they shouldn’t be party to the lawsuit because neither has taken action to enforce the budget rule in a way that directly affects the children whose parents brought the suit.
Reach Sara Gregory at 843-906-1777. Follow her on Twitter at @saragregory.
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