Some SLO County youths are defying mask mandate. That doesn’t make them Rosa Parks

Let’s be crystal clear. White students protesting mandatory masking are not the modern-day equivalents of Rosa Parks — even if they are “segregated” from other students and required to sit outside in inclement weather.

Also, being asked to show proof of COVID vaccination to visit a patient in the hospital is in no way comparable to being required to prove whether you were a German or a Jew during World War II.

Both those outrageous comparisons were made during a Tuesday meeting of the Atascadero school board.

Even worse, they came from two members of the school board, President Terri Switzer and Trustee Ray Buban, during a heated discussion of the mask mandate for public schools, which is due to expire after March 11.

Other board members were more circumspect in their remarks, but no one thought to call out their colleagues for their appalling statements that trivialized the suffering of two of the most persecuted groups in human history.

We have to ask, does anyone seriously believe that being mandated to wear a face mask — a public health requirement that has affected everyone — is as horrific as the discrimination generations of Black people have faced, and continue to face?

Or that being asked to show proof of vaccination during a worldwide pandemic is somehow comparable to what Jewish people experienced during World War II, when 6 million Jews were slaughtered?

Is there any wonder there are now calls for the resignation or removal of the two board members?

Demand for immediate end to mandate

Board members made their remarks after listening to a parade of parents and students demanding the district drop the mask mandate now.

Several mentioned that the students who protested by refusing to wear face coverings were sent outdoors and marked absent, though the district superintendent later said that’s no longer the case.

The board declined to cancel the mandate immediately, after explaining that doing so would leave them vulnerable to lawsuits filed by students or employees who might come down with COVID between now and March 11.

But trustees made it clear that they sympathize with parents, and some went even further and urged the audience to vote current state officials out of office.

Switzer railed against government overreach, mentioning everything from the forced dumping of milk to allowing homeless people to “squat” wherever they like.

This came next: “I was denied access into Sierra Vista Hospital yesterday to see a family member that will probably never see sunlight again. Like the Holocaust, I could not prove if I was a German or a Jew. Oh, I mean my vaccine status. This is new world order, man-made germ warfare that has crippled this country and is cause for alarm. Our world is beautiful. The people who are running it are not.”

Buban implied a connection between young mask protesters and Rosa Parks, saying they were “segregated, disrespected and treated like third-class citizens or someone that should be sitting at the back of the bus or not being allowed to sit at the lunch counter.”

He isn’t the first to have gone there. Since the start of the pandemic, several public officials in a variety of places have compared mask protests to the civil rights protests of the 1950s and ‘60s.

But there’s something especially repugnant when it comes from school officials who are entrusted with the education of young people.

We already have districts that don’t want students to learn the truth about the history of abuse of people of color, lest white students feel bad about themselves.

Now we have a district encouraging students to play the victim card because they are being asked to put up with a state health mandate that will expire in a matter of days?

This would have been an excellent opportunity to teach children about the need to make sacrifices for the common good.

Instead, they’re being elevated to the status of heroes or even martyrs for defying a public health order during a worldwide pandemic that’s killed nearly a million people in the U.S. alone.

It’s doubtful that either of these board members will resign. But if they do stand for reelection, voters should remember this performance.

This story was originally published March 4, 2022 at 5:30 AM.