A judge in Florida’s 2nd Circuit Court effectively ended Gov. Ron DeSantis’s ban on mask mandates in schools.
Leon County Circuit Judge John Cooper ruled that school districts have the right to institute mask mandates if they have a “compelling state interest” and follow a “narrowly tailored” plan of action.
Copper said he was not ruling against DeSantis but was instead barring state agencies from enforcing the ban. He ruled that the enforcement violated Florida’s separation of powers statutes.
CONTROVERSY SURROUNDS EIGHT STATES THAT PROHIBIT SCHOOL MASK MANDATES
DeSantis signed an executive order on July 30 preventing school boards from requiring school staff and students to wear masks. School districts in Alachua, Broward, Hillsborough, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties defied the order and imposed a mask mandate.
The Florida Board of Education voted last week to punish Broward and Alachua counties for imposing mask mandates. School board members in those counties could have lost their monthly pay had the court not intervened.
Eight Republican governors, including DeSantis, have banned mask mandates, arguing that it should be a matter of personal responsibility and left up to the parents.
Opponents said that the ban endangers students by not following guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Some experts have recently debated whether mask mandates in schools do more harm than good.
Court challenges similar to Florida’s are also occurring in Texas and Oklahoma.
