Team Biden is pushing ahead with its illegal COVID power-grab

The Education Department cited a different, more recent law on Monday, when it announced investigations of five states that have ­defied the CDC’s advice by forbidding mask mandates in public schools. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona says those states may be violating Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, which prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in federally funded programs.

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Cardona said his department had heard from “parents of students with disabilities and with underlying medical conditions,” who complained that “state bans on universal indoor masking are putting their children at risk and preventing them from accessing in-person learning equally.” His argument implies that Section 504 makes the CDC’s recommendations for schools mandatory.

“It’s massive federal overreaching,” says Hans Bader, a former senior attorney at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who also has worked in the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights. “The federal government essentially wants to dictate systemic changes to states’ school policies because of speculation [about] how those policies may affect disabled students in particular school districts.”

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