The mask wars didn’t end with Covid.
First, they were a public health imperative. Then they were banned in a conservative backlash. And now, in the wake of nationwide Israel-Palestine protests, lawmakers are trying to ban face coverings of all kinds, in a move many see as a strategy to yank the face masks off pro-Palestine voices and silence dissent.
Ohio warned its public universities that protesters could be charged with a felony under an obscure anti-mask law. Officials in Texas justified their police response to campus protests in part because students were wearing masks. Eight student protesters at the University of Florida were charged with misdemeanors, including wearing masks in public. And, in June, North Carolina passed a mask ban over the objection of its governor, adding extra penalties for crimes committed while wearing a mask and raising the punishment for activists who block traffic.
Backers of the efforts say the measures will increase public safety and protect minority communities from vigilante violence, but activists and legal experts tell The Independent the provisions could do the exact opposite: exposing protesters to potentially violent police interactions, threatening immunocompromised people, and silencing pro-Palestinian activism despite being ostensibly neutral.
Most recently, the University of California system, the nation’s largest, directed campuses to forbid students from wearing masks “with the intent of intimidating any person or group” or evading identification while breaking the law or school policy.
This approach troubles political science professor Graeme Blair of UCLA, which was home to a large Palestinian solidarity encampment that was attacked by a mob of masked counter-protesters and subject to a violent police sweep.
“They just have one goal. The UC administration would like to stop speech on campus about Palestine,” he said. “That’s really cynical from a college administration.”
Blair, a member of Faculty for Justice in Palestine at UCLA, said his students had plenty of good reasons to mask up over the semester. In addition to health conditions and the ongoing Covid pandemic, there was the threat activists would be doxxed for participating in the demonstrations.
Sites like Canary Mission, as well as a constellation of even more opaque social media influencers and right-wing groups, regularly post details about pro-Palestinian activists, who are often then threatened on- and offline.
Nassau County, which covers part of Long Island, was one of the first places in the country to ban face masks. Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who passed the legislation this month, said the bill will help identify individuals who commit violent or hate crimes. It provides exemptions for those who wear masks for religious or medical reasons, although it’s uncler how that will function in practise.
At a news conference in August, Blakeman said the bill was introduced in response to “people who wore masks and engaged in antisemitic acts” and added that the bill “is a broad public safety measure … we’ve seen people use masks to shoplift, to carjack, to rob banks, and this is activity that we want to stop.”
After Nassau County implemented its mask ban, the New York Civil Liberties Union wrote in a statement that the legislation fails to safeguard rights and liberties. “We’ll say it again: masks protect people who express political opinions that are controversial. Officials should be supporting New Yorkers’ right to voice their views, not fueling widespread doxxing and threatening arrests.”
A string of concerning incidents has prompted officials to consider expanding mask bans well beyond Nassau County.
In Los Angeles, violence broke out between pro-Palestinian and Pro-Israeli demonstrators at a synagogue in June after it had hosted an Israel real estate event, leading mayor Karen Bass to consider a mask ban.
