Education

Lawsuit Contends Mask Mandate Is Unconstitutional

The Statehouse News Bureau | By Jo Ingles,

Jo Ingles

Published September 16, 2020 at 2:53 PM EDT

More than two dozen parents, mostly in Northwest Ohio, are suing the state over the mandate that K-12 students be required to wear masks.

Mike Stahl, one of the attorneys who filed the complaint in Putnam County Common Pleas Court, says Ohioans didn’t have any due process in the mask mandate. And he says the statute acting Ohio Health Director Lance Himes has used to put the mandate in a state order doesn’t apply in this case.

“It doesn’t appear that it really grants the director the authority that he needs to act these sort of acts, especially on his own authority," Stahl says.

Stahl says state lawmakers should be coming up with mandates like this, not the health director or the governor. And he says this mandate is unconstitutional. A similar lawsuit against the mask mandate in schools was filed in Muskingum County last month.

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Jo Ingles

Jo Ingles is a professional journalist who covers politics and Ohio government for the Ohio Public Radio and Television for the Ohio Public Radio and Television Statehouse News Bureau. She reports on issues of importance to Ohioans including education, legislation, politics, and life and death issues such as capital punishment. Jo started her career in Louisville, Kentucky in the mid 80’s when she helped produce a televised presidential debate for ABC News, worked for a creative services company and served as a general assignment report for a commercial radio station. In 1989, she returned back to her native Ohio to work at the WOSU Stations in Columbus where she began a long resume in public radio.

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Jo Ingles