WILLIAMSON COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN) — A former Disney Channel actress was among the parents who spoke out against a mask mandate during a heated school board meeting in Tennessee earlier this week — one that captured national attention.
Leigh-Allyn Baker, who played the mother on Disney’s “Good Luck Charlie” from 2010 to 2014, told the Williamson County School Board on Tuesday night that she was against the district reinstating a mask requirement for students.
Baker explained that she has “two vaccine-injured children” and said they have medical exemptions due to seizures and hospitalizations that resulted from their immunizations.
Despite their exemption, the actress told the board that she would “never put them in a mask because their brain needs oxygen to grow, which the neurologists could confirm.”
“The real part of the clown show is that you all think that you actually have the authority to mandate this,” Baker told the board.
She added, “There are these books that I have, and I have them as a gift for you. The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the Federalist Papers, and also the Bible, and these guarantee my freedom and yours and our children’s to breathe oxygen.”
In the end, the Williamson County School Board voted 7-to-3 to require masks once again in elementary schools.
The Williamson County Sheriff’s Office also announced it would investigate the meeting after now-viral videos began circulating on social media, showing a confrontation outside the building between people who were for and against the mandate.
Several doctors and school board members were threatened during the confrontation, prompting President Joe Biden to remark on the incident during a news conference on Thursday.
“I saw a video and reports from Tennessee of protesters threatening doctors and nurses who were before a school board making the case that to keep kids safe, there should be mandatory masks,” the president said. “And as they walked out, these doctors were threatened; these nurses were threatened.
“You know, our health care workers are heroes,” he continued. “They were the heroes when there was no vaccine. Many of them gave their lives trying to save others.”
Also on Thursday, Baker followed up anti-mask speech by posting the Williamson County’s Student Face Covering Exemption Request form to her official Instagram page. She captioned the post with, “Hey Tennessee! Fill it out! Show your face!”