State lawmakers and law enforcement officials are reinstating dormant laws criminalizing the wearing of masks to punish pro-Palestinian protesters who hide their faces, raising concerns among Covid-wary Americans.
Republican lawmakers in North Carolina are poised to overturn Governor Roy Cooper’s (D) recent veto of legislation to criminalize masking. The Governor of New York. Kathy Hochul (D) said earlier this month that she supports legislative efforts to ban masks on the subway, citing an incident in which masked protesters on a train shouted, “Raise your hand if you are a Zionist. This is your chance to get out.” Student protesters in Ohio, Texas and Florida have been threatened with arrest for covering their faces.
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According to the International Center for Not-For-Profit Law, decades-old anti-masking laws — often created in response to the Ku Klux Klan’s covert terror — are on the books in at least 18 states and DC. Lawmakers in some areas have passed legislation to create health exemptions during the coronavirus pandemic, while other authorities vowed not to enforce the statutes.
Immunocompromised Americans and civil libertarians who have long criticized the mask ban as a bludgeon against protesters against police shootings, economic inequality and environmental injustice say the bans are being revived because Covid is no longer being treated as a public health emergency. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, levels of the coronavirus in wastewater are reaching high levels in much of the Sun Belt and Florida, providing early indications of a summer Covid surge.
Lawmakers eager to restore mask restrictions from before the pandemic say the legislation would not target medically vulnerable people and others trying to avoid respiratory viruses. But critics say such an approach would be impractical and would expose mask wearers to further ostracism and harassment by police and fellow citizens.
The day after the North Carolina House passed its anti-mask bill in June in response to pro-Palestinian protests at the University of North Carolina, Shari Stuart said a man confronted her for wearing a surgical mask as she walked into an auto service center in the Raleigh area for an oil change. After trying to explain she has stage 4 breast cancer and a weakened immune system, Stuart said the man called her a “damn liberal” and insisted masks were now illegal. He later coughed on her and said he hoped the cancer would kill her.
Stuart, who first shared her experience with a local television station, said she worries that this type of harassment will worsen if mask restrictions become law, despite language in the bill that allows wearing “a medical or surgical grade mask with the aim of preventing the spread. of infectious diseases.”
“People will still think you’re breaking the law if you wear a mask. They don’t care what’s going on with you,” Stuart told The Washington Post. “I thought I should wear masks with something printed on them, like ‘immunodeficient’ or ‘cancer patient.’ But we shouldn’t do that.”
Others fear that people of color will bear the brunt of enforcement.
“Anytime you see these types of laws where we mandate a certain thing that someone can do with their body, who is going to be most affected by that? Black and brown people,” said Diana Cejas, a Black pediatric neurologist in Chapel Hill, who wears masks in part because she is at increased risk for respiratory illness due to scar tissue around her airways from cancer treatment. “At the same time, I don’t let that stop me from keeping myself and my patients safe.”
In a statement accompanying his veto, Cooper said the legislation “removes protections and threatens criminal prosecution for people who want to protect their health by wearing a mask.”
Republican lawmakers have called such concerns overblown because of the bill’s health exception. Republicans have enough votes in their majority to override Cooper’s veto.
“Bad actors use masks to conceal their identities when they commit crimes and intimidate innocents,” said Senator Danny Earl Britt, Jr. (R), one of the bill’s sponsors, in a statement. “Rather than help put an end to this threatening behavior, the Governor wants to continue to embolden these criminals by giving them more time to hide from the consequences of their actions. I look forward to casting a vote to override this veto so that people with actual health concerns can protect themselves and others.”
Opponents of mask restrictions question how a health exception could work when protesters wearing medical-grade masks say they are trying to stay healthy in a crowd.
“If there is a political protest, I don’t understand exactly how authorities plan to distinguish those wearing masks for health purposes from those wearing masks to protect their identities,” said Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at American Civil Liberties Union who has written about the issue. “It really creates a situation where we’re likely to see selective enforcement against protesters that authorities don’t like.”
Sylvie Tuder, one of the protest organizers from the University of North Carolina’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, said participants are encouraged to wear masks specifically to limit the spread of communicable diseases, and called the GOP bill an attempt to suppress the protest.
“As defenders of Palestinian life, it is our duty to honor the real danger that infectious diseases pose to all people, both in Chapel Hill and in Palestine,” said Tuder, a doctoral student in sociology.
But Adam Goldstein, a medical professor at the University of North Carolina who supports legislative efforts to limit masking, said widespread masking creates a troubling climate for Jewish faculty, staff and students who are harassed by people they cannot identify. Goldstein said one protester covered their face with a kaffiyeh, a scarf commonly worn at pro-Palestinian protests, approached him and shouted “intifada” as he held up a sign calling for the release of Israelis held hostage by Hamas.
He said people at increased risk from Covid should be able to wear medical-grade masks, but does not believe masked protesters are motivated by public health because many use ineffective cloth coverings and masking was much less common on campus before the protests .
“You can’t just say you’re selectively concerned about it only when you’re protesting,” Goldstein said. “If you are at high risk, you probably shouldn’t do risky activities, such as gathering in large public groups.”
In New York, Democratic leaders say the relaxation of mask rules early in the pandemic has now hampered police responses to crime and anti-Semitism.
“We will not tolerate individuals using masks to avoid responsibility for criminal or threatening behavior,” Hochul said at a news conference this month, adding that she wants to protect “legitimate” reasons for wearing masks, including to protect against Covid or the flu to prevent.
New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) has also expressed support for restrictions.
Yaacov Behrman, a rabbi who favors mask restrictions with public health exceptions, said he was recently harassed by a group of pro-Palestinian protesters, including some wearing masks who shouted “Zionists are not welcome here,” as he walked past the Brooklyn Museum was running. wearing a yarmulke, a head covering worn by some Jewish men.
“They use masks to harass and intimidate,” said Behrman, founder of the Jewish Future Alliance, a community advocacy group.
New York Mayor Eric Adams (D) has encouraged retail businesses to let customers remove their masks when they enter to discourage robberies. “I think this is the time to get back to the way things were before the coronavirus crisis,” Adams said in a radio interview this month.
But some New Yorkers have embraced masking as a healthy practice in a busy city of millions, to avoid airborne pathogens that can disrupt life.
Logan Grendel, a 46-year-old Harlem resident, credits regular wearing of masks on the subway with preventing respiratory illness since the pandemic began. “The fact that I have never worn a mask on the subway is strange to me,” Grendel said.
Meredith Cann, a telehealth psychotherapist in Manhattan who serves largely immunocompromised and disabled people, said she has potential clients seeking mental health care because they are terrified after hearing Hochul and Adams’ calls to limit masking.
“Average everyday people will hear what our governor and mayor are saying: People who wear masks are criminal,” said Cann, who receives weekly injections of an immunosuppressant for a chronic condition. “We are afraid for our quality of life and our ability to simply exist in public.”
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