Arizona schools now in full-scale revolt over GOP ban on mask mandates. Good for them

Gov. Doug Ducey and the Republican-run Legislature must be wondering what hit them about now.

The state’s schools, community colleges and universities are in full-blown revolt over our so-called leaders’ edict that masks cannot be required on campus, even as a highly contagious virus is spreading through the state.

Even as children across Arizona are being hospitalized for COVID-19 in numbers never before seen.

What started with the Phoenix Union High School District taking a stand for sanity has now spread statewide.

Ban unfairly discriminates against public schools

On Thursday, a coalition of education and child advocacy groups along with 11 residents sued the state, challenging Republican leaders’ ban on school mask mandates. The groups, which include the Arizona School Boards Association, the Children’s Action Alliance and the Arizona Education Association, contend the ban is unconstitutional and violates the state’s equal protection clause.

“The Legislature passed this bill in the face of a public health crisis, when the COVID-19 virus is mutating and spreading rapidly across the country and this state, including among children,” the lawsuit says. “The legislation unfairly discriminates against Arizona’s public and charter school students as compared to their private school peers regarding their right to a safe education.”

They are, of course, right.

The bans on mask mandates and vaccine mandates – along with other controversial measures that didn’t have enough support to pass as stand-alone ideas – were slipped into the state’s budget bills in the final hours of the legislative session.

It didn’t matter that the state constitution requires that each bill be about only one subject – in this case, state spending.

It didn’t matter that the bills didn’t go through the normal legislative process, which involves hearing from the public (such a bore) and actual discussion and debate (who needs it?).

All this to get votes to pass a budget?

Agreeing to forgo sensible protections for children, many of whom cannot be vaccinated, was the price Ducey and the GOP leaders were willing to pay to get enough Republican votes to pass their budget.

To get votes from people like Sen. Kelly Townsend of Mesa, who announced that she would not “vote for an education budget bill with a provision that gives authority to school boards to mandate masks on our kids.”

From people like Rep. Joseph Chaplik of Scottsdale, who tweeted that he “wouldn’t sign the #AZBudget until masks were made optional in schools”.

Not only did they slip their mask edicts into the state’s K-12 and higher education budget bills with the majority of votes needed to pass, they then decreed that the K-12 ban was retroactive to that day, June 30 – ignoring the fact that it takes a two-thirds vote of each chamber in order for a bill to take immediate effect.

In their zeal to pander to their far-right base, Republicans aren’t even trying to follow the law anymore.

So what if COVID-19 once again rages across the state? So what if children 11 and under cannot be protected via vaccination? 

They. Don’t. Care.

Ducey actually supports the wearing the masks. As we have seen before, he's just not up to leading when the going gets tough.

Meanwhile, 26 Republican legislators this week actually called on Ducey to withhold funding from schools that require masks, apparently believing that even children should suffer their wrath when crossed.

How dare they put politics before public health and dictate to schools that they can’t follow the recommendations of public health officials and medical professionals so we can get this nightmare behind us?

Good on schools for standing up

So, good for Phoenix Union for taking on Ducey and the Legislature and announcing on July 30 that masks would be required for their 28,000 students and staff. And Tucson Unified and Flagstaff Unified and the seven other school districts that have followed, requiring that masks be worn inside their classrooms.

Good on Arizona State University for figuring out this week that Ducey’s ban on mask mandates in public colleges and universities was so poorly written that it can’t actually stop the schools from putting public health before politics. ASU on Wednesday announced it would require masks in inside its classrooms and labs and in outdoor settings where people cannot keep their distance.

Good for University of Arizona, Northern Arizona and the Maricopa County and Pima County community college District for then quickly following ASU’s lead on Wednesday evening and Thursday, announcing their own mask mandates.

Good for the Arizona Board of Regents, a panel packed with Ducey appointees, which on Thursday backed the universities.

“The steps taken by our universities comply with the executive order related to university COVID-19 actions and state law, and the board supports our university presidents for taking measures they believe are necessary to minimize risk of COVID-19 transmission on campus,” Ducey appointee and Regents’ Chair Lyndel Manson said on Thursday.

And good for the Arizona School Boards Association and the coalition of groups who filed a lawsuit on Thursday afternoon.

Good for them all for standing up to a bunch of bullies who believe they can flout the state constitution, state law and common sense in order to appease those in their base who see masks as a symbol that the end of the world, as we know it, approaches.

It’s about time sombody pushed back against a regime that is holding onto control of the state by its bare fingertips.

For now.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.

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