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Parents Sue State, Calling K-12 Mask Mandate Unconstitutional

Marian Jacques

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

Ohio Public Radio's Jo Ingles reports. 

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 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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