Court rules against school district that denied mother acccess to DEI training materials

A Pennsylvania court has ruled in favor of a mother challenging her children’s public school district after it denied her request for information about the taxpayer-funded “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” materials used to train students and faculty. 

A three-judge panel from the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania ruled late last month that the Downingtown Area School District provided “insufficient” evidence to support its denial of a mom of three Ann Trethewey’s 2023 request for materials being used to instruct her children and their teachers. 

The district claimed the information is exempt from disclosure because it “constitutes or reveals a trade secret or confidential proprietary information.” However, the court ruled that DEI materials are not trade secrets since they are openly shared with employees and can’t be considered a trade secret.

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“A trade secret is essential to the product, but it is not the product itself,” the majority opinion, written by President Judge Emerita Mary Hannah Leavitt, states. “For example, Coca Cola uses a secret formula to create its product known as ‘Coke.’ [The author] did not identify a ‘formula’ or ‘algorithm’ that was the secret to the creation of his product, which is DEI training material. Because that product is widely shared to School District employees, it is not secret.” 

Attorneys with the Goldwater Institute’s American Freedom Network helped the mother challenge the school district’s decision with the state Office of Open Records. The AFN works closely with the conservative and libertarian Goldwater Institute on cases dealing with issues like free speech and taxpayer rights. 

Trethewey filed the public records request in January 2023 for all documents and materials (paper or electronic) and all presentations used by the DEI program director and DEI staff to instruct or lead any training or programs to any staff, teacher, counselor or student in the school district.

In rejecting her request, the district’s DEI director, Justin Brown, asserted that he created the materials before he started working with the district. He argued that disclosing the materials would cause him “substantial commercial and competitive harm.

The appellate court called for the trial court to conduct a hearing “on the issue of whether the “confidential proprietary information” exemption contained in Section 708(b)(11) of the RTKL applies to the DEI training materials.”

Wally Zimolong, one of the mother’s attorneys, celebrated the ruling as “a crucial victory in the fight for parental rights and government transparency.”

“But the fight to protect parental rights isn’t over. School districts across the country continue to use secrecy, including unfounded claims of trade secrets and proprietary information, as a shield to push ideological agendas,” the attorney said in a statement provided to The Christian Post.

“We must remain vigilant and persistent in defending transparency, because parents have a right to know what their children are being taught in taxpayer-funded schools,” he continued. 

The Downingtown Area School District did not immediately respond to The Christian Post’s request for comment. 

The debate over parental rights in education has continued to make headlines, mainly as President Donald Trump and his administration take steps to eliminate certain educational policies.

Last month, the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights sent a letter to academic institutions and state education agencies that receive federal funding, warning that these institutions could lose federal funding if they did not eliminate their DEI programs by the deadline.

“The Department will no longer tolerate the overt and covert racial discrimination that has become widespread in this Nation’s educational institutions. The law is clear: treating students differently on the basis of race to achieve nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity is illegal under controlling Supreme Court precedent,” the document stated.

On Feb. 17, the department announced it had terminated over $600 million in grants, which included awards to teacher preparation programs that the agency said contained “inappropriate and unnecessary topics.” The topics cited as inappropriate included critical race theory, anti-racism and social justice activism.