White House signals another showdown with GOP governors over masks in schools

The White House could wade into the latest school mask mandate battle, which is now being waged just across the Potomac River from the nation’s capital.

Press secretary Jen Psaki tweeted about the controversy after Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued an executive order allowing parents to opt out of school mask mandates, saying she supports Arlington County and other districts that have vowed to keep them in place.

YOUNGKIN BATTLE WITH SCHOOL DISTRICTS OVER MASKS SET TO ESCALATE

The tweet came from Psaki’s personal account, and the White House did not respond to questions about its official stance on the matter. But the Biden administration has already gone to battle with several Republican governors over the issue of forced masking in schools.

In August, the Department of Education opened investigations in five mask-optional states — Oklahoma, South Carolina, Iowa, Tennessee, and Utah — for the purpose of determining whether they discriminated against students with disabilities who have a heightened risk of severe illness from COVID-19.

The White House used a different tactic in Arizona and Florida, which also have Republican governors. In Arizona, it has threatened to withhold COVID-19 relief funds if the state doesn’t allow local school boards to implement mask mandates. In Florida, the administration reimbursed local school board members whose pay was docked for defying Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s mandate ban.

However, no Florida school districts are still defying DeSantis, and Youngkin will have the upper hand in any showdowns with the White House, according to Heritage Foundation legal fellow Sarah Parshall Perry.

“The Department of Education’s hands are largely tied when it comes to involvement in state and local affairs,” Perry said, noting that very little school funding originates at the federal level. “Based on the timing of this, they’re unlikely to pursue a directed investigation.”

She predicted the White House may engage in “saber-rattling” in the form of public statements or potentially another Department of Education investigation but added that if the issue goes to court, it would be up to the school districts to prove masking requirements are supported by the evidence, which would prove tricky. The World Health Organization does not advise masks for children ages 6 and under, nor does the European Union for children 12 and under, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s studies on the subject have been called into question.

Robert Eitel, the president and co-founder of the Defense of Freedom Institute and a former Department of Education official, previously told the Washington Examiner that Virginia school districts defying the governor are relying on a state law that requires them to follow CDC guidelines in order to maintain in-person instruction as the justification for defying the executive order.

But because the executive order simply requires schools to allow parents the option of sending their children to school without wearing a mask, Eitel said school districts that do not allow for an opt-out will likely be sued by parents with the support of Youngkin and state Attorney General Jason Miyares.

Citing the CDC, another executive branch agency, as a means for bucking Youngkin’s order is legally shaky, according to Perry.

“The CDC guidance is exactly that: guidance,” she said. “The CDC is not a lawmaking agency when it comes to suggestions on best practices.”

From a communications standpoint, Psaki is pushing an existing stance on an issue most people have probably made up their minds about, according to former CDC spokesman Glen Nowak.

“The challenge is that both political parties want to have it both ways,” he said. “On the one hand, they want to give jurisdictions latitude to implement policies that make the most sense given local circumstances. On the other hand, they want everyone to generally adopt the same approach.”

While a rallying cry throughout the pandemic has been to follow the science, there are limits to how much can be definitively gleaned from raw science and data, Nowak added, at which point it’s up to politicians and the communities they serve to decide how to proceed.

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“It’s one of those things that’s not going to go away as we grapple more broadly with the issue of how to go forward with the pandemic,” he said. “There are experts suggesting we have to come to grips with the virus being with us for our lifetimes. How do you make that transition? … It’s not going to be a scientific judgment at the end of the day. It’ll ultimately be a societal value judgment.”