Advocating for Children Harmed by Covid Policies

It’s been about a month since I’ve posted an update for the Week in Land Law. I wish I could say that I’ve been traveling or relaxing or doing something uplifting and wonderful. Instead, I’ve jumped with both feet into advocacy for my children. I’ve begun a very uncomfortable deep dive into the decision-making process my local school district has been following since March 2020. I’ve done a terrifying examination of executive powers and the authority of political leaders in times of crisis.

My research thus far reveals that, despite nearly two years of data and plentiful opportunity for legislatures to legislate via an open democratic process, most of our institutions are still imposing arbitrary rules based on irrational fear and not on data. Most of these rules are imposed using unilateral authority, rather than undergoing a public process in which elected representatives weigh the risks and benefits associated with certain policies. Most of the decisions are driven by political motivations.

In my own school district (which has not met in person since August), our superintendent requires all children to wear masks on campus at all times, including outdoors.* Our board relies heavily on a medical professionals committee to make covid-related decisions. When I dug into the committee, however, I found that there are no qualifications necessary to join, no application process, and they’ve been meeting behind closed doors with the full school board. No members of the public have been invited to attend, and I’m allegedly the first person to ask.

Despite being flooded with studies showing the devastating impacts on mental and emotional health, development, and even physical damage to children’s faces, my school board has yet to consider any of these harms and weigh them against any purported benefit of forcing kids to wear masks outside.

So, why am I writing about this, at the risk of alienating clients over what has become a hot-button political topic? I write because under the sensational polarized madness we see in the media, there are millions of rightfully concerned parents spanning the full political spectrum who want to help their children, but have no idea what to do or how to start. Every time I speak at a meeting, parents I’ve never met reach out to me to show me pictures of their children’s facial rashes, to cry about the institutionalization of their children for anxiety, depression, and eating disorders, to express fear over the financial burden they’ve taken on because they had to send their kids to private school, to vent frustration over the cruel and nonsensical rules that have essentially turned our schools into sterile, prison-like environments. I want to help you.

You may be terrified to speak out because of the narrative that parents speaking at school board meetings are Q-anon lunatics, anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, and very bad people who don’t care about keeping the community safe. You may be scared to speak out because you’re terrified that if you ask for a change, the schools will shut down again and your life will be completely derailed. You may be afraid to speak out because you have a prominent role in the PTA and you don’t want to lose your community.

Teachers are afraid to speak out because if you don’t toe the union line, you will be maligned and lose protection and support for promotions and other benefits. You don’t want to be outcast by the group.

If you are not ready to speak but want to get your concerns heard anonymously, please reach out to me. However, I encourage you to find the courage to speak. There are many more people on your side than you think, and it has been very cathartic for me to speak with other people who share my concerns.

Generally, people continue to be terrified of covid, despite data showing that healthy vaccinated adults have a very low likelihood of hospitalization or death, and healthy unvaccinated children are more likely to die from a lightning strike than covid.

I strongly encourage you to empower yourself with data. I’m not talking about what people say about the data - I am talking about the data itself. Look at the numbers, look at peer-reviewed medical journal articles. Explore how life is being lived outside of California, and outside of the United States. There are millions of children attending school around the world without masks. The United States, and especially California, is an outlier.

If you need help figuring out how to speak up for yourself and your family, please review my tips on how to talk to the government. I am going to add posts over the coming weeks to explain the Brown Act, show you how to make a Public Records Act request, explain what a government agency must do to make a rule or law, and what the legal process looks like to challenge action taken by a public agency. If you have questions or topics that you want me to write about, please email me at julie@juliehamill-law.com.

Maybe one day I will get back to talking about real estate and land use. Not today.

*Three days following publication of this article, the outdoor mandate was lifted.