By Daniel Rivera, Reporter
On Sept. 11, California Educators for Medical Freedom and Los Angeles Leftists for Choice and Unity organized a rally outside the Los Angeles Unified School District Headquarters at Beaudry Ave to protest the mask mandates for faculty and students as the school year starts up again.
The anti-mandate organization sued Los Angeles Unified in March 2021 two weeks after the district attempted to impose a vaccine mandate for it’s employees. The school district rescinded the policy a day after California Educators for Medical Freedom (an organization representing current district employees) filed the lawsuit.
Subsequently, the district moved to have the case dismissed because it had already rescinded the policy. Several months later, in November 2021, the district reinstated its mandate policy, prompting the activist group to file suit again, but this time in the Ninth District Court of Appeals.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the court will hear their case on Sept. 15where members of the California Educators will join demonstrations in Seattle and provide personal statements to the court.
“We are standing here because LAUSD blocked hundreds and hundreds of teachers beginning in October of 2021 [from returning to work],” said teacher and former school board candidate Tracy Schroeder.
In December of 2021, LA Unified laid off 500 teachers who refused to comply with vaccination mandates, which both advocacy groups opposed along with the mask mandates.
Teachers across California are faced with larger workloads, trying to catch up with children who have effectively missed out on two years of education, having a smaller workforce leaving the remaining teachers to pick up the pieces. Many of these teachers felt unsupported, that they weren’t getting enough help and resources from the district, these were some of the opinions shared during the LAUSD sister union, Teachers Association of Long Beach negotiations.
According to recent data from the Los Angeles County Health Department, the infection rate from June to the start of September confirmed hospitalizations has gone from 200 to 600 daily. Los Angeles is no stranger to rising and falling COVID infection numbers over the last three years facing multiple waves and mostly smaller waves each time.
Many of the demonstrators say that the COVID-19 vaccine does not change the chances of catching COVID-19 and it does not change the fatality rate in Los Angeles with death rates under 1%. Anti-maskers include Bernie or Busters, Trumpers, and people from all walks of life.
“These people aren’t White supremacists. Nothing the Democratic Party says these folks are. They are White, Latino, Black, Asian, they’re all American, Democrat or Republican,” said Ian Jameson, who was wearing a Bernie Sanders t-shirt. He’s the founder of the Los Angeles Leftists for Choice and Unity. Jameson has been politically active since at least 2016. According to an Orange County Tribune report in 2022, one of Jameson’s demonstrations prompted the Garden Grove Unified School District to adjourn its meeting because he refused to mask.
“All of these health agencies at the local level are getting a shit ton of money from the federal government and they are getting a shit ton of money from the pharmaceutical industry. They are captured agencies and I don’t care if you call me a conspiracist,” Jameson said about the recent data on the uptick in COVID-19 infections.
The federal government worked with universities and several medical pharmaceutical companies in both developing and manufacturing the vaccine.
Jameson addressed Sanders’ support for masks and vaccination mandates.
“He’s an idiot,” Jameson said. “I …supported many of his policies. He was amongst the least awful members of Congress… Bureaucrats just aren’t that smart.”
He explained that he was a campaign volunteer and that while he agreed with Bernie on many issues, he believes Sanders is mistaken in his support of vaccine and mask mandates, arguing that they violate the rights of Americans.
The vaccine was publicly funded and was largely distributed for free by various charity organizations and the city itself as a part of an effort to “flatten the curve” when daily infections were peaking and hospitals were at capacity making it harder for people to find care in time.
A failure to adequately assess the risk of another outbreak by a strain that may or may not be vulnerable to the current vaccines and may or may not be worse than the last strain leading to a potentially deadlier outbreak.
Among the advocate’s concerns was the religious rights of some of the teachers and parents in which they explained they did not want the vaccine due to “Deeply held religious beliefs,” but did not want to explain further.
The group has been fighting mask mandates mandates since 2021 when they were first deployed.