After years of fights over mask mandates, why do some states now want to ban face coverings?

What’s happening

Americans can’t seem to stop fighting about masks. After years of intense debate over mask mandates, the argument has now flipped entirely to become about whether certain face coverings should be banned.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said last week that she is considering banning face masks on New York City subways over concerns that the coverings obscure the identities of people committing antisemitic acts. New York City Mayor Eric Adams supports the idea, arguing that “cowards cover their faces.”

“We will not tolerate individuals using masks to evade responsibility for criminal or threatening behavior,” Hochul said. “On a subway, people should not be able to hide behind a mask to commit crimes.”

Hochul’s statement came a few days after a video spread online of a group of pro-Palestinian protesters, some of them masked, crowded into a subway car while one man instructed all Zionists — a term for people who support the existence of a Jewish state — to exit the train.

Masks have been a common sight at demonstrations against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza across the country, with some participants saying that they’ve chosen to cover their faces over concerns about spreading COVID or potential punishment for taking part in the protests. There have also been some cases where mask-wearing activists have committed acts of vandalism or made explicitly antisemitic statements.

Hochul said there’s no timeline on when a mask ban might go into effect in New York, but some other states have already taken action against face coverings. In North Carolina, where a law banning face coverings has been on the books since 1953, the state Legislature recently passed a bill that would increase penalties for anyone who commits a crime while wearing a mask. The Ohio attorney general warned protesters last month that they could face felony charges for obscuring their faces under a law that was passed in the state more than 70 years ago to deter the Ku Klux Klan. Texas and Florida have also relied on decades-old anti-masking statutes in their responses to pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

The emerging push against masks isn’t solely targeted at protesters. Philadelphia banned ski masks within city limits late last year in hopes of reducing crime. A new law in Washington D.C., recently made it illegal for someone to cover their face with the intent of obscuring their identity while committing a crime.

Why there’s debate

Advocates for bans in their various forms say face coverings make it impossible for authorities to identify people who break the law or engage in hate speech. “The deceptive use of masks and other facial covering pose a significant risk to public safety,” New York State Assemblyman Michael Reilly told the New York Post last month. Some supporters argue that a mask ban wouldn’t just make it easier to punish bad actors, but could also prevent some crimes from ever happening because potential perpetrators will be less likely to think they’ll get away with it.

Opponents say these bans pose a danger to public health. Hochul has said that any future ban in New York would still allow people to mask for medical reasons and a similar exemption was added to North Carolina’s law before it passed. But some health experts and medically-vulnerable people fear that protections for medical masking will really only exist on paper and, in reality, the bans would still create even more barriers for people who want to protect themselves from COVID and other diseases.

Critics also warn that the bans will inevitably be used to suppress free speech because they will provide a pretense for authorities to crack down on demonstrations they would otherwise have no legal grounds to stop. Others make the case that the law-abiding protesters should have the right to maintain their anonymity in order to protect themselves from being punished for their views, especially in our era of high-tech surveillance.

What’s next

North Carolina’s masking bill has been approved by both houses of the state’s Republican-led state Legislature. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper hasn’t said whether he’ll veto the legislation or not, but even if he does, the GOP has a large enough majority to override his veto.

With New York’s state legislative session over for the rest of the year, Hochul will likely need to wait until lawmakers reconvene in Albany in January before any action can be taken on her proposed subway mask ban.

Perspectives

Masks allow criminals and bigots to avoid punishment for their actions

“Disruptive protesters wear masks for the same reasons the members of the Ku Klux Klan wore them in the past — to avoid being caught and punished and to frighten and intimidate the public. Criminals who wear masks for such purposes demonstrate a heightened level of culpability and merit a heightened level of retribution.” — Jon Guze, Carolina Journal

No one should be punished for trying to protect their health

“It's not fair to punish those who are medically vulnerable just because some protesters also choose to mask up. Nor is it fair to punish one protester more severely than another simply because one of them chose to wear a mask.” — Editorial, Charlotte Observer

The shield of anonymity fuels bad behavior

“Being anonymized has always been associated with more deviant and criminal behavior. People who wear masks feel more enabled and empowered to do things that they normally wouldn’t have done if their face was seen in public.” — Bryanna Fox, University of South Florida criminology professor, to Washington Examiner

Anyone who thinks that mask bans will prevent crime is kidding themselves

“At this point, everyone should calm down, do the research — and then come back to the table with solutions that will actually work, because this ain’t it.” — Ernest Owens, Philadelphia Magazine

Free citizens are under no obligation to submit to high-tech surveillance

“The emergence of face recognition technology has changed what it means to appear in public. … The push to normalize face recognition by security agencies threatens to turn our faces into the functional equivalent of license plates. Anti-mask laws are in effect a requirement to display those ‘plates’ anytime one is in public. Humans are not cars.” — Jay Stanley, American Civil Liberties Union

There is no legal right to anonymity

“Some claim the mask-wearing is to prevent ‘doxxing’ over their activism, but there’s no free-speech right to protest anonymously. No, it’s all about bullying — a license to threaten, and even commit violence.” — Editorial, New York Post

Laws should only target masking that serves criminal behavior

“An anti-mask provision could be used to enhance penalties for other crimes of which the masked perpetrator is accused, rather than a stand-alone offense. A law that clearly provides that wearing a mask itself is not criminal, but committing a crime with one is, would be harder to use as a pretext for selective enforcement or harassment.” — Editorial, Washington Post

Ordinary citizens shouldn’t have to live in fear of hordes of masked demonstrators

“The face mask, which evolved in the pandemic from an inconvenient imposition to a status symbol, has now become the hallmark of danger. Its wearers no longer fear for their safety and that of others. Rather, they seek to instill fear in you.” — Noah Rothman, National Review