As more Americans are vaccinated and state mask mandates are dropped, can my employer forbid me from wearing a mask while at work?
The bottom line
As long as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that individuals wear masks and social distance at work and elsewhere, you are on firm legal footing, workplace experts say. State or local mask mandates and executive orders offer even more protection. But some states never required masks and others have lifted their mandates. As we enter future phases of the pandemic, there is some ambiguity about whether you will have a legal right to wear a mask at work. People with disabilities have better protections in this situation than those without a documented disability.
“With the way that mask-wearing got politicized, we’re going to see a lot of this” as some employers try to telegraph a message that everything has returned to normal, said Wendy Strobel Gower, the program director of disability, inclusion and accommodation at Cornell University’s Yang-Tan Institute on Employment and Disability.
The details
