If Republican governors are going double down on endangering school children, that’s a fight President Joe Biden will take to the mat.

Biden on Wednesday said he was directing Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona to use whatever means possible to help protect children returning to school in states where governors have prohibited universal masking—all of them GOP-led states.

“This includes using all of his oversight authorities and legal actions, if appropriate, against governors who are trying to block and intimidate local school officials and educators,” Biden said at a White House press conference on his COVID-19 efforts.

“As I’ve said before,” Biden continued, “if you aren’t going to fight COVID-19, at least get out of the way of everyone else who is trying.  You know, we’re not going to sit by as governors try to block and intimidate educators protecting our children.”

Biden said, for example, any losses in salary or funding suffered by an educator or school district mandating in-school masking could be compensated through existing funds from the American Rescue Plan: “100%.”

GOP Govs. Ron DeSantis of Florida, Greg Abbott of Texas, and Doug Ducey of Arizona have all threatened in one way or another to cut funding for schools and educators that defy their bans on local mask mandates. 

The science on universal in-school masking reducing transmission for kids is unequivocal. Republican governors are not only playing Russian roulette with kids’ lives; they are dooming their schools to fail at providing in-person instruction by enacting masking bans that will surely up the transmissibility of the highly contagious delta variant. 

That has become painfully obvious in places like Florida’s Hillsborough County Public Schools, where more than 8,000 students and 300 staff were suddenly forced to either isolate or quarantine due to positive COVID-19 tests and/or exposure to the virus. In an emergency meeting on Wednesday, the county’s school board voted 5-2 to implement universal masking for 30 days in defiance of DeSantis’ ban.

“We’re just asking for a 30-day protective measure. Isn’t that the least we can do for our children? If it saves one life, ten hospitalizations, isn’t that the least we can do?” Board chair Lynn Gray asked at the meeting.

Whatever Republican governors seem to think, the politics of protecting children’s lives are still trendy. Recent polls show upwards of 60% support—69% in one poll—for requiring in-school masking. 

Ya know what’s an absolute political loser in a general election? Punishing schools and locales for implementing mask mandates. Just 22% of Americans favored such punitive actions in an Ipsos-Axios poll released this week. So Republican governors are truly risking kids’ lives right now to curry favor with the fringes of society. 

In a blog post on DOE’s site Wednesday, Sec. According to the Washington Post, Cardona said the department could investigate any state agency whose policies “may infringe” on a student’s right to access public education.

“The department will also receive and respond as appropriate to complaints from the public, including parents, guardians, and others about students who may experience discrimination as a result of states not allowing local school districts to reduce virus transmission risk through masking requirements and other mitigation measures,” Cardona wrote. “As always, the Department’s Office for Civil Rights evaluates allegations of discrimination on a case-by-case basis, looking at the specific facts of each case.”

Republican governors have sought to tie the hands of districts and educators who are making a good-faith effort to protect kids while still providing in-person learning. Now President Biden has put the full force of the federal government behind the school boards and administrators who GOP governors have placed in an impossible bind to score political points with a radicalized GOP base.  

Biden decided to fight fire with fire in the name of protecting kids. It’s quite simply the right thing to do, and the vast majority of Americans agree.