(C) ProPublica.
This unaltered story was originally published at ProPublica.org. [1]
Licensed under creative commons by-nc-nd/3.0 [2]
The Biden administration will use a federal civil rights office to deter states from banning universal masking in classrooms.
Author Name, ProPublica
2021-08-18 00:00:00
President Biden, escalating his fight with Republican governors who are blocking local school districts from requiring masks to protect against the coronavirus, said Wednesday that his Education Department would use its broad powers — including taking possible legal action — to deter states from barring universal masking in classrooms.
Mr. Biden said he had directed Miguel Cardona, his education secretary, “to take additional steps to protect our children,” including against governors who he said are “setting a dangerous tone” in issuing executive orders banning mask mandates and threatening to penalize school officials who defy them.
“Unfortunately, as you’ve seen throughout this pandemic, some politicians are trying to turn public safety measures — that is, children wearing masks in school — into political disputes for their own political gain,” Mr. Biden said in remarks from the East Room of the White House, adding, “We are not going to sit by as governors try to block and intimidate educators protecting our children.”
The federal intervention comes as school districts face the monumental task of trying to get students back to in-person learning and reverse the devastating setbacks experienced by a range of students. Mr. Biden’s move puts the federal government at the center of bitter local debates over how to mitigate against the virus in schools, just as the highly infectious Delta variant is fueling a spike in pediatric cases.
[END]
[1] URL:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/18/us/politics/biden-masks-schools-civil-rights.html
[2] URL:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/
URL:
https://www.propublica.org/steal-our-stories
ProPublica via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/propublica/
