Judge Rules Texas Schools Can Implement Mask Mandates

A federal judge has ruled that a ban prohibiting Texas schools from implementing mask mandates violated the Americans With Disabilities Act, opening the door for school districts in the state to set their own masking requirements.

The decision, which could have ramifications for similar cases across the country, comes after months of conflict between the state and school districts over the mask mandate ban. Disability Rights Texas, an advocacy group, challenged the rule from Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on behalf of disabled students and their families in August.

The group argued that the use of masks around disabled students "would lower their risk of contracting the virus and thus make it safer for them to return to and remain in an in-person learning environment," according to the ruling from U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel.

Yeakel wrote that the students "are either forced out of in-person learning altogether or must take on unnecessarily greater health and safety risks than their nondisabled peers."

Disability Rights Texas cheered the decision.

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

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton tweeted that he "strongly" disagreed with the ruling.

"My Agency is considering all legal avenues to challenge this decision," he said.