Judge says Texas school mask mandate ban violates disabled student rights

A US judge has overturned a Texas ban on mask mandates in schools, ruling it violated the rights of disabled students to learn during the pandemic.

Judge Lee Yeakel said the ban denied disabled children, who are more likely to face Covid complications, the right to in-person learning with their peers.

Districts may now set their own rules. Texas' attorney general is looking to challenge Wednesday's decision.

Mask mandates for pupils have sparked similar legal rows across the US.

"Children with certain underlying conditions who contract Covid-19 are more likely to experience severe acute biological effects and to require admission to a hospital and the hospital's intensive-care unit," Judge Yeakel wrote.

He said evidence presented in court showed these children "are being denied the benefits of in-person learning on an equal basis as their peers without disabilities".

The ruling is the culmination of months of legal wrangling between parents and the state after Governor Greg Abbott issued the ban in May, amid a declining Covid caseload.

Mr Abbot and other Republican state officials have argued Covid measures should be a personal choice, not mandated by the government.

Disability Rights Texas (DRT), the advocacy group that filed the lawsuit, said Wednesday's decision showed Texas is not above federal law.

"No student should be forced to make the choice of forfeiting their education or risking their health, and now they won't have to," DRT attorney Kym Davis Rogers said in a statement.

In a tweet late on Wednesday, Attorney General Ken Paxton said he strongly disagreed with the decision and was "considering all legal avenues to challenge" it.

DRT filed the suit in August on behalf of 14 students with disabilities, arguing that enforcement of the law discriminated against them and violated the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act.

"Students with disabilities need in-person schooling more than other student groups, but they must be able to receive instruction and services safely," their complaint noted.

In September, the US Department of Justice issued a statement on the Texas case, noting the ban kept disabled children from attending school as some parents would keep them at home due to Covid-19 risk, "even though the children could safely attend school if mask protocols could be put in place".

Some of the state's biggest school districts, including Dallas and Austin, had moved forward with mask mandates in defiance of the order.

A federal civil rights office is currently investigating similar bans in five other states.