A legal complaint filed in Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court, targeting Gov. Josh Shapiro and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission for regulations around sex discrimination, includes Knoch School District as one of the plaintiffs.
Knoch’s school board voted in favor of participating in litigation against the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission on Wednesday, March 5. Knoch School District’s solicitor, Tom Breth, is one of several who filed the legal petition.
The petition challenges regulations advanced by Shapiro and the human relations commission. The petitioners claims that the commission, along with the state executive branch, is “expanding” the interpretation of sex beyond male and female, and that they do not have the authority to do so.
The legal petition was filed the next day, March 6, in Commonwealth Court in Harrisburg on behalf of two school districts and various parents.
When the board voted on approval, board President Donna Eakin said that with the exception of a one-time payment of $10,000, the majority of litigation costs would be covered by the Thomas More Society, a conservative, public-interest law firm, where Breth is a special counsel.
According to the petition, the list of petitioners includes Knoch, South Side School District in Beaver County, and several parents filing both individually and on behalf of their children.
The petition said the commission has created an “unimagined meaning of ‘sex’ within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” and that it goes beyond the legal norm.
“The PHRC regulations have created multiple classifications of persons such as males, females, nonbinary, heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, or asexual individuals who by inclination, practice, identity or expression, having a history thereof, or being perceived, presumed or identified by others as having such an orientation,” the petition said.
The school board added the voting item to its agenda at its March 5 work session meeting. The board approved joining the plaintiffs with a six to two vote. Eakin said this was a “time-sensitive matter,” and that’s why it was not on the agenda before the meeting.
Rebecca Boyd and Jill McDonald were the two board members who voted against joining the litigation. Eakin, Anthony Infante, Justin Kovach, Patti Larrimer, Bill Gebhart and David McRandal voted to approve participation.
Breth emphasized that the litigation is challenging constitutionality of Shapiro and the executive branch’s actions.
“Generally, in an nutshell, the litigation challenges constitutionality of regulations advanced by governor Shapiro and the Pennsylvanian Human Relations Commission that expand the definition of sex to go well beyond male or female. And these regulations will apply to schools, businesses other public accommodations, and they were never approved by the legislature,” Breth said.
Breth said the executive branch is ignoring precedent in its policies.
“Pennsylvania’s constitution recognizes males and females, period. That has always been the interpretation with the term sex in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” Breth said. “These regulations disregard centuries of precedence in the Commonwealth to redefine sex to go well beyond males and females, there’s sub-classifications encompassed within the new definition.”
The Thomas More Society is a law firm based in Chicago. According to its Wikipedia page, it is a conservative, Roman Catholic, public interest firm that engages in various “culture war” issues. It has previously worked across the country challenging laws relating to same-sex marriage, COVID-19 public health measures, and the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Counsel for the petitioners includes Tom King, of Dillon, McCandless, King, Coulter & Graham, as well as state Rep. Stephenie Scialabba, R-12th.
Breth said this is a matter of public policy for which the state legislature has the authority, not the governor’s administration.
“Litigation of this nature gets misperceived. We did the litigation in the mask case a couple years ago challenging the governor and … mandating masks in schools,” Breth said. “We made it clear, we didn’t argue whether it was appropriate or not, we argued the legal issue which was the department of education, and the department of health, and the governor did not have legal authority.”
This story was updated at 12:15 p.m., March 7, to reflect that Rebecca Boyd voted against joining the petition while David McRandal voted in favor. A previous version listed Boyd twice and did not list McRandal.
