(November 14, 2024 – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) As part of a November 13, 2024, settlement agreement secured by Thomas More Society attorneys in a lawsuit filed on behalf of Pennsylvania school districts, educators, and families, against the Pennsylvania Department of Education, the state’s education department has agreed to rescind its “Culturally-Relevant and Sustaining Education Program Framework Guidelines,” or CR-SE. Under the terms of the agreement, all public schools, school districts, charter schools, and other school entities across the state will no longer be required to implement or comply with the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s previously issued CR-SE guidelines.

First issued in November 2022, Pennsylvania’s CR-SE guidelines sought to mandate that educators affirm and impose on their students highly ideological beliefs about contentious social and political issues. This required educators throughout Pennsylvania to make acknowledgments of the “biases [that] exist in the education system,” “microagressions,” and “unconscious biases,” among other ideologically tinted points. Examples of ideological standards in the CR-SE guidelines include mandates that educators:

• “Believe and acknowledge that microaggressions are real and take steps to educate themselves about the subtle and obvious ways in which they are used to harm and invalidate the existence of others...”
• “Disrupt harmful institutional practices, policies, and norms by advocating and engaging in efforts to rewrite policies, change practices, and raise awareness...”
• “Engage in critical and difficult conversations with others to deepen their awareness of their own conscious/unconscious biases, stereotypes, and prejudices...”
• “Design learning experiences and spaces for learners to identify and question economic, political, and social power structures in the school, community, nation, and world.”

Thomas More Society attorneys originally filed suit in April 2023 on behalf of three public school districts and a group of parents and students, arguing that the guidelines violated the First Amendment and were issued in violation of state regulatory law.

Thomas Breth, Thomas More Society Special Counsel, reacted: “We are incredibly pleased with this settlement agreement, which forces the Pennsylvania Department of Education to rescind the state’s ‘Culturally-Relevant and Sustaining Education’ guidelines—securing an important victory for Pennsylvania parents, students, and teachers. Our agreement is a triumph against the Department’s blatantly ideological and illegal attempt to inject ‘woke’ activism into school curricula across Pennsylvania, which demanded educators affirm their belief in these ideological tenets and then impose the same upon their students.”

Peter Breen, Thomas More Society Executive Vice President & Head of Litigation, stated: “Educational standards should help students learn how to think, not what they must believe. This victory against Pennsylvania’s ‘woke’ curriculum mandate restores that opportunity for Pennsylvania families and teachers. Pennsylvania’s CR-SE curriculum guidelines commanded to students what they must believe and unconstitutionally compelled teachers to pledge loyalty to an ideological program.”

Read the Mediated Settlement Agreement, issued November 13, 2024, in Laurel School District, et al. v. Pennsylvania Department of Education, et al., submitted by Thomas More Society attorneys in the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, here.

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