Masks in school. Saying a mask poses no harm to others, U.S. Middle District Court Judge Matthew W. Brann on Sept. 30 denied an injunction regarding a requirement in the Montoursville Area School District in Pennsylvania that students wear masks.
“No one except perhaps a bank robber likes to wear a mask, and even then with reluctance, but as a concession to professional attire,” Brann wrote. “But the Constitution does not shield us from all things we dislike. Here, parents of schoolchildren in Montoursville.”
“The Constitution does not guarantee students a right to attend school without wearing a mask and being required to do so neither inflicts irreparable harm nor in any way violates students’ right to freely associate and assemble with others,” Brann said.
Some Montoursville parents sued to stop the mandatory wearing of masks after the superintendent of schools implemented an order by Alison Beam, the state’s acting state Department of Health secretary, to slow the surge of the highly contagious Delta variant in Pennsylvania.
The parents’ suit was “in direct contravention of the state Department of Health’s masking order,” Brann said.
He said the mask mandate does not infringe and that the parents failed to Show how the mask mandate would result in irreparable harm.
The Delaware Valley school board recently decided to allow students to not wear masks in school as long as their parents filled out a DV form saying the masks are harmful to their children. Even so, the board says the school is in compliance with the state mandate.