VICTORY! Court Affirms that Public School DEI Indoctrination Isn’t a Trade Secret

A Pennsylvania mother won a major victory for parental rights and government transparency last week when her local school district tried—and failed—to withhold “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) materials by claiming they were “trade secrets.”

Ann Trethewey, a highly involved mother of three, keeps up with every school event and is engaged in her children’s education. In 2023, she requested access to the Downingtown Area School District’s DEI-related materials that were presented to teachers, staff, and students to see whether the school district was indoctrinating students by teaching racially discriminatory DEI. But the district refused, contending that the documents were “trade secrets,” and therefore exempt from Pennsylvania’s public-records law.

Ann appealed the district’s decision with the help of the Goldwater Institute’s pro bono American Freedom Network, and represented by Pennsylvania-based attorneys Wally Zimolong and James Fitzpatrick. After two long years of litigation, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court last week refused to hear the district’s appeal, delivering a victory for Ann and for parents’ rights writ large.

Ann was not seeking trade secrets, despite the school district’s claims. Trade secrets are confidential information that provides a business with a competitive advantage such that disclosure would cause financial harm to the business. For example, the formula for making Coca-Cola is a trade secret. The Downingtown Area School District invoked this narrow exception to disclosure by contending that the release of the training materials would harm a school district that created the teaching training.

Had the school district’s argument prevailed, it would have created a disturbing precedent to shield government employees from transparency and hide taxpayer-funded training from the public.

When the district tried to advance its flimsy trade secret theory before a Pennsylvania appellate court, it failed. The court correctly held that the public was entitled to see records created by a government employee to train other government employees, and that there was no trade secret protection for these materials.

But the case wasn’t over. The school district continued to press its novel legal argument before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and last week it denied review. Now, the appellate court’s decision that the training materials are not trade secrets stands as binding statewide precedent. And that sends a clear message to the government that trade secret pretexts won’t block public access to taxpayer funded DEI materials.

The Court’s decision secures a critical victory for parental rights and government transparency. The increasingly common tactic by school officials who misuse confidentiality claims to prevent accountability and limit parental insight into their child’s public education has been thwarted.

But the fight to protect parental rights isn’t over. Many school districts across the nation still attempt to limit parent access by misusing vague defenses and secrecy to hide ideological agendas. We must stay proactive to ensure taxpayers—especially parents—can see precisely what is being taught in our children’s classrooms.

Jon Riches is Vice President for Litigation at the Goldwater Institute’s Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation.