State Of Illinois And Chicago Inexplicably Press On With Senseless ‘Kids-Last COVID Policy’ – Wirepoints

By: Mark Glennon*

Real Clear co-founder Tom Bevan didn’t mince words Wednesday on Twitter and he got it exactly right: “Everyone gets their freedom back, but we’re going to keep punishing kids. This is the most ass-backwards, inexcusably evil policy in history.”

He was referring to the decision by Chicago Public Schools to keep its student mask mandate in place even though most other mask mandates are ending on Monday. The State of Illinois is trying to enforce the same policy, ending most mandates Monday except for school kids.

It’s what The Atlantic called the “Kids-last covid policy.”  “Based on the science,” the Atlantic wrote, “the kids-last approach makes no sense. Kids should face fewer restrictions than their parents, not more.”

Gov. JB Pritzker is not backing down, even though COVID infections have plummeted and the state has not put up any science to support school masking. Every other state but four have dropped or scheduled an end to statewide school mask mandates.

He is proceeding with a convoluted appeal. After berating the lower court that ruled against him, he now says the appellate court that upheld that ruling did so for political reasons. “We actually don’t think there’s any lack of clarity,” Pritzker said. “The judge decided differently, but I also think there were some politics in that … The conflict is political, it is not what is in the written law.”

On Tuesday his administration filed its documents asking the Illinois Supreme Court to accept an appeal in the effort to reinstate a statewide school mask mandate.

Or maybe it’s an effort simply to have the court affirm Pritzker’s remarkable claim last week that the statewide mandate is still in place despite the lower courts’ rulings. That was quite a claim given that countless headlines locally and nationally had declared the mandate dead unless reversed on appeal. And it surely befuddled over 700 of Illinois’ 852 school districts that have already dropped their mask mandates based on the courts’ rulings.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul also claims the mandate is still in place. Last week, he issued a statement saying that the agency ruled voided by an Illinois court “does not affect the executive orders issued by the governor under the Illinois Emergency Management Agency Act, including the governor’s executive order requiring the use of masks in school.”

If Pritzker and Raoul really believe the mandate is still in place, they should just go try to enforce it. Instead, they’ve gone to the supreme court asking for, well, I am not entirely sure what all they are asking for because their filings and the situation have become so muddled.

One point the state is clearly trying to make is that Pritzker’s own executive orders stand on their own and are fully authorized by Illinois’ Emergency Management Agency Act.  That’s a plausible argument. Both lower courts disagreed with that, but they certainly did not address it clearly and it is validly raised on appeal.

But if Pritzker wins on that, what’s the point? Does he really expect schools to go back to masking for as long as he, personally, feels like it? That’s exactly what he is arguing he can do through executive orders.

The primary source of the legal confusion, in my view, is that both the lower courts and the state have been very sloppy about distinguishing what should be two separate topics. First there is the restraining order issued by the lower court that pertains only to the named plaintiffs and certain school districts. But the court went further, providing what almost sounds like a declaratory judgement applicable statewide. It’s order says certain emergency state agency rules are “null and void.” And those rules were necessary to effectuate the statewide school mask mandate in Pritzker’s executive order, the court believed, thereby invalidating the mandate.

Different legal issues apply to those different matters and should be kept separate. But read through lower courts’ orders and the state’s new supreme court filings and you will see that it’s often impossible to tell which matter they are talking about. (The key documents, if you want to torture yourself, are here and here.) Ironically, one of the state’s reasons why it says the supreme court should accept the appeal is that the situation has become so confusing. Though the courts bear some blame, it’s the state itself also created the confusion.

Let’s go back to why Chicago and the State of Illinois are persisting on this. Maybe it’s as simple as this: Teachers’ unions want mask mandates. Here’s a new statement on point from the Chicago Teachers Union.

Maybe he really believes the science indicates that masks work well enough to justify the harm being done to children. But if so, why wouldn’t he have shown us any such science?

Or maybe The Atlantic had it right, saying that “after two years of telling parents to be afraid for their children, policy makers can’t simply turn around and tell them that kids are low risk and everything’s fine.”

It certainly hasn’t helped that the matter has become politicized.  That may have reached peak foolishness in a comment by Elizabeth Todd-Breland, a member of the Chicago Board of Education, who says this is somehow about racism since most Chicago public school student are minority. She explained the board’s vote to keep the mask mandate to the Chicago Sun-Times by saying, “Masks are not oppressing anyone. …Oppression and systemic inequality is what has actually caused the disproportionate impact along those lines of race and class.”

*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.