A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed the lawsuit of a former Laramie High School student who sued her local school district on claims that a 2021 mask mandate was unconstitutional, and she suffered retaliation after she was arrested for refusing to comply with it.
Grace Smith and her parents Andy and Erin Smith sued the Albany County School District in August 2023, in federal court, over the district’s 2021 mask mandate.
Smith had refused to wear a mask, had declined to take virtual instead of in-person schooling, organized a walkout in protest of the mask mandate, was suspended for three different two-day stints, and was ultimately arrested for trespassing while at school.
Police officers arrested and handcuffed Smith, drove her to the police station, booked her for trespassing, then released her to her father.
Ultimately, she withdrew from the school.
Smith sued the district first in state court, then in federal.
This marks the second dismissal of Smith’s lawsuit, though the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the first dismissal by proclaiming that Smith had standing to sue – though the higher court didn’t issue a decision on the ultimate merit of her case.
U.S. District Court Judge Kelly Rankin, of Wyoming, dismissed Smith’s complaint Wednesday with prejudice, meaning on a permanent basis, after issuing an opinion casting her claims as ill-founded.
Smith brought six claims: that being required to wear a mask amounts to unconstitutional “compelled speech,” that the district retaliated against her by suspending her and having her arrested for her refusal to wear the mask, that the school violated her due process rights in issuing the mandate, that her parents were deprived of their parenting rights, that the school board exceeded its authority in issuing a health regulation, and that the mask mandate violated the Wyoming Constitution.
The first three, federal claims, didn’t apply under the events Smith listed in court, concluded Rankin, and therefore the three state claims didn’t grandfather into his court.
The mask mandate was not compelled speech, Rankin said in his opinion.
Smith had contended it was compelled speech, on a theory that because the school board allegedly lacked the authority to issue a health regulation, it therefore advanced its mask mandate as a compelled statement.
And having students wear masks equated to having them support the government’s COVID-19 measures, Rankin related from Smith’s court arguments.
“The Court finds this argument unavailing,” wrote the judge. “Following this logic, driving on the right side of the road is speech because it signifies agreement with traffic laws. By the same token, noncompliance frequently signals disagreement, but driving on the left side of the road is still illegal in the United States.”
Smith had alleged that a walkout she organized among other forms of dissent were behind the school’s actions against her.
Rankin said Smith failed “to plausibly allege that the actions taken against (her) were done in retaliation” for permissible speech, such as the walkout.
Thirdly, wrote the judge, Smith’s claim that the board violated her due process rights did not hold water.
Students keep constitutional rights at school, but the board still may determine rules by which to run the school, wrote Rankin.
“The mask mandate violates no federal constitutional rights,” wrote Rankin, referring to a 1905 U.S. Supreme Court case in which the high court upheld a smallpox vaccine requirement.
