The 1st District Court in Florida, an appeals court in the state’s judiciary, reinstated a stay on mask mandates in schools on Friday, blocking local school requirements for now, court documents show, CNN reports.
Downtown Ft Lauderdale in Broward County, Fla. (felixmizioznikov/iStockPhoto)The appeals court thus reversed a ruling by a trial judge on Wednesday after lawyers for Gov Ron DeSantis, a Republican, filed an emergency appeal.
“We have serious doubts about standing, jurisdiction, and other threshold matters,” the appeals judges wrote in a one-page decision, NPR reported. “Given the presumption against vacating the automatic stay, the stay should have been left in place pending appellate review.”
What that says is that citizens don’t have the authority to question what the government does in court. It uses words like “standing” and “threshold matters” to challenge the right parents have to examine government action in a court of law.
The original lawsuit filed by parents has led to some substantial back-and-forth. The parents’ lawsuit contends that Mr DeSantis doesn’t have authority to order local school boards to ban mask mandates.
Some school districts have vowed to keep their mask mandates in place for now, given the latest surge in Covid and the perceived likelihood that the legal battles will take so long that the pandemic may be over.
“We’re in the middle of a pandemic and we’ve got to respond accordingly to what’s in the best interest of our students related to the pandemic,” the network quoted Vickie Cartwright, superintendent of the Broward County Public Schools. “We look forward to the future ruling from the District Court of Appeals.”
BREAKING: 1st District Court of Appeals just granted the State of Florida's request to reinstate the stay — meaning, the rule requiring ALL Florida school districts to protect parents' rights to make choices about masking kids is BACK in effect!
— Christina Pushaw (@ChristinaPushaw) September 10, 2021
Ms Pushaw is a spokesperson for Mr DeSantis.
