Attorneys representing the Knoch School District and other plaintiffs argued in court Wednesday, Dec. 10, that the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission circumvented the state legislature by improperly expanding the definition of sex in anti-discrimination regulations to include gender and restroom designations.

Butler attorneys Tom King and Tom Breth presented oral arguments on the petition they filed on behalf of Knoch, the South Side Area School District and state Reps. Aaron Bernstine, R-8th, and Barb Gleim, R-199th, before the full panel of Commonwealth Court judges.

The Knoch school board in March voted to join the lawsuit, spending $10,000, and in following meetings, community members expressed discontent with the decision, saying it endorsed an atmosphere of intolerance among marginalized groups.

Arguing on behalf of the commission, Aimee Thomson, Pennsylvania deputy general counsel, said the commission has broad rulemaking authority to implement Pennsylvania Human Relations Act policies including definitions, and the state Supreme Court has upheld that authority.

Thomson said the school districts have no standing to challenge the regulations because no enforcement action has been taken against either of them.

The regulations went into effect in 2023 and do not require school districts to enact specific policies to comply, she said.

No conflict exists between the Pennsylvania School Code and the 2023 regulation, Thomson said. School district are required to provide separate restrooms, locker rooms and athletic teams for male and female students, but there are no rules governing how districts operate those facilities, she said.

King argued that it is not safe to have biological males and females sharing locker rooms and restrooms, and while neither district has such shared facilities, they could be forced to implement them based on the commission’s regulations.

He said the dispute centers on whether the legislature delegated authority to the commission to redefine the word sex. The legislature did not delegate that authority, King said.

Breth argued the state School Code requires districts to segregate restrooms on the basis of sex and refers to male and female sexes.

Both districts also receive funding from the federal government and must abide by federal regulations, which refer to male and female sexes, he said.

The commission regulations say districts that restrict restroom access to only males and females discriminate against others, Breth said.

Thomson countered, saying the commission regulations didn’t redefine sex. Instead, they redefined what constitutes discrimination, which wasn’t defined in the Human Relations Act, and the legislature gave the commission the authority to define sex in the act.

She asked the court to find the regulations valid and dismiss the petition.

Breth closed the hearing by saying courts have interpreted sex as male and female since 1955. If the legislature disagreed with that interpretation, it would have amended the Human Relations Act to address the inconsistency, but it did not. He argued that the commission took it upon itself to define sex.

He asked the court to declare the regulations void.

The judges did not immediately issue a decision.