“A Wyoming teenager who believes that mask mandates violate her constitutional rights was arrested for trespassing after she refused to leave school grounds” last week, the U.K.-based tabloid Daily Mail reported on Monday, October 11, 2021 (read story here).
Grace Smith, 16, a junior at Laramie High School who “calls herself a straight ‘A’ student,” had previously gotten “three separate two-day suspensions and racked up $1,000 in trespassing fines for not wearing a mask and refusing to leave campus,” the Daily Mail said.
Smith explained herself this way: ‘It’s because I’m growing up in a country where I’m supposed to have my God-given rights to protect, and they’re being taken away. Everybody has the freedom to wear a mask if they choose, but I believe everybody also has the right to not wear a mask if they choose.”
Here’s the problem. #1, She doesn’t get to make the rules. #2, Making her wear a mask at school protects others from her. By refusing to follow the rules, she’s violating their right to be safe from her. (And, given her attitude, I’d consider her a higher risk for being a germ-spreader.)
She won’t be a straight-A student anymore if she gets the grade in civics class she deserves, which is an F. Here’s why she’s a failing student in civics:
- Students learn in civics class they have to follow society’s rules, whether they agree with them or not.
- Students learn in civics class how our government works. They learn our government consists of legislative, executive, and judicial branches. And that courts, not each of us individually, decide whether the rules are constitutional.
- Students learn in civics class they don’t get to make their own rules, and “rights” aren’t whatever they decide they are. She doesn’t have a “right to not wear a mask if they choose.” That would have to come from a Wyoming law or governor’s executive order, but neither state law nor a governor’s order has overridden the school’s policy (for details, go here).
Objecting to a mask policy is free speech; violating a mask policy isn’t. Call her a “protester” if you like, but protesting doesn’t exempt her from the school’s policy. And protesters get arrested when they break laws. Trespassing is an arrestable offense. For the record, she was arrested for trespassing, not protesting the school’s mask policy, or even for refusing to wear a mask.
Ms. Smith is getting a proper civics education. She’s learning what happens to lawbreakers. Hopefully that’s a lesson she’ll remember.
Guess someone should have used your logic and explained it to Plessy, freedom riders, folks who hung out at lunch counters, and Martin Luther King. All these folks seemed to have a similar problem to what you are saying here. I think a lot would be more supportive of the teen than you are. Anytime rights are suppressed it takes a lot of gumption to stand up for them and take the hits that come with disobeying. [Comment edited.]
This is why she’s in the wrong. Anti-maskers endanger others. If you want to be taken seriously, don’t compare them to civil rights crusaders. It’s not remotely the same. They were fighting for equality; she’s just being selfish.