The U.S. Department of Education announced Monday that it has opened investigations in five Republican-led states that ban mask mandates in schools, saying such policy could be discriminatory against students with disabilities. In letters sent to chief state school officers of Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah, the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) said it is looking into whether these states discriminate against students with disabilities by denying them safe access to in-person learning. The OCR is concerned that restrictions on school mask requirements “may be preventing schools … from meeting their legal obligations not to discriminate based on disability and from providing an equal educational opportunity to students with disabilities who are at heightened risk of severe illness from COVID-19,” the letters state. “The department has heard from parents from across the country—particularly parents of students with disabilities and with underlying medical conditions—about how state bans …