Jessica Lowery of Longview, Texas, had the opportunity to address the school board of the Longview Independent School District on October 11th.
She entered the meeting room and declined to wear a mask in a mask-required zone (though mask mandates have been banned per executive order).
“I’m not here tonight to make threats or to belittle anyone,” Lowery explained and continued with an explanation of the uselessness of masks to prevent COVID-19 according to several studies.
“I don’t know if the board is taking into consideration the many studies that have proven that the types of masks that our children are wearing--forced to be worn--do not protect you from a virus,” she continued. Her daughter, Hannah Cole, has “broken out from ear to ear” because of the masks.
After this opportunity to explain her family’s position to the school board, her daughter attended school the next day minus a mask. She was soon told to go to the disciplinary center where she was required to wait for the rest of the day while frustrated Jessica attempted to solve the issue via phone.
Jessica was informed that the LISD high school (the principal used the term ‘we’ but did not make clear whether this decision was his or the Board’s) had already decided how to handle such situations. Another student had also challenged this mandate, and LISD determined that all non-compliant (non-brainwashed) students who refused to be forced to wear a mask would be placed in In-School Suspension.
Hannah would be escorted every morning to an isolation room, her school work would be delivered to her, and at the end of every day she would be escorted to her ride home. Of course, school buses are not an option for someone violating dictatorial mask mandates; she might infect someone with something far more dangerous than COVID will ever be: free ideas.
Thus far, only two students out of over 8,400 in the Longview ISD have challenged this mandate. The other student endured isolation for just over two months. However, his grades began to plummet because he was not provided any class work during isolation, and he decided to return to class.
Hannah is a 17 year old high school student who understands her rights and how to stand up for them. She wrote an email that was sent to each of her teachers on Oct. 13 explaining the situation to them.
This email is included in its entirety.
Good morning [teacher’s name],
As you may already know, I will be physically absent from my classes for an unforeseen time due to my legal protest of the unlawful mask mandate placed by the Longview Independent School District.
I have been given an ultimatum of two choices: continue to conform to the unlawful mask rules, or learn from an isolated classroom.
Standing by the convictions of my beliefs, I will be learning alternatively from my home for the time being.
A public school district, like Longview, is funded by the state. I believe it is not within the district’s power nor authority to mandate any of their students and/or staff to wear a mask. I have therefore proven that this is true and I am deciding to follow the state law which I have sworn to uphold and protect as a National Guardsmen.
Thank you in advance for your assistance in this matter.
Persistently and patriotically,
Hannah Cole
Hannah’s parents received a response on Oct. 14.
“...clarification is being provided regarding attendance expectations.” All days Hannah does not physically attend school will be counted as an unexcused absence, the accrual of which “...will result in the institution of truancy proceedings…” and homework will not be provided.
Jessica’s plans nonetheless are to keep her daughter home as a virtual student until she can be assured that Hannah “will not be punished for standing up for her civil liberties.”
The civil liberties for which Jessica and Hannah are fighting are enumerated in the U.S. Constitution. They are not granted by the Constitution, but merely affirmed. Those rights were given to us upon conception. We possess them in the Bill of Rights, but there is another principle that is commonly overlooked.
“That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men,…that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,…”
Declaration of Independence
In other words, citizens have the right to control their government; thus the “consent of the governed.”
If the citizens don’t like what is being done, they should have a recourse open to them, and we have one.
It’s called Article V: an opportunity to rein-in the federal government by raising a grassroots army of peaceful but determined patriots who will line their state with Convention of States and lead the way in proposing amendments to the Constitution as per the Constitution: through the states rather than through Congress.
