Mom Who Sued School for DEI Records Told They’re ‘a Trade Secret’

In 2020, Ann Trethewey admits she wasn’t a “preacher of politics.” Back then, the mom of three, who lives in Chester County, Pennsylvania, just 45 minutes outside Philadelphia, trusted teachers to manage what went on inside her children’s classrooms. Why wouldn’t she?

But now she’s the face of a growing band of parents fighting to force better transparency and accountability in their children’s schools. Last month, she won a ruling in her state’s Commonwealth Court, which ordered her school district to divulge its diversity, equity, and inclusion curriculum to parents.

“I’m not used to being in the spotlight,” Trethewey told me. “I didn’t do it just for myself. I did it for my children, and I did it for other mothers and parents.”

It all started in the fall of 2020, after her school district, Downingtown Area, reopened after lockdowns. The district started requiring students to wear masks, and also phased in a new curriculum Trethewey felt was shifting the focus of the classroom “from education to DEI.” In January 2021, the district appointed Justin Brown as a special director of DEI. Public records show that, in 2024, Brown made $154,000—$70,000 more than the average wage of a district employee.

Trethewey told me she also heard the district had started teaching “trauma-based learning,” which she describes as the assumption that everybody has “trauma in their life.” As a result, she said, educators “had to walk gingerly and treat our children as if they were glass.”

“And I thought, That’s not how I raised my children,” she said. “I raised my children to be hard knocks.”

Her three kids, now 18, 22, and 25, had attended the Downingtown Area School District for over a decade. “I was—and I hate to say was—very proud of being a Downingtown mom,” Trethewey, 56, told me. “But once my eyes were opened, it was hard to shut them again.”

In late 2020, she began attending monthly school board meetings, where she met other parents who shared her frustrations. Together, they joined the newly formed local chapter of Moms for Liberty, a conservative movement of mostly mothers who were banding together in response to pandemic-era mask mandates in schools. The activist group, which primarily works to elect local school board members, has stirred up national controversies for its stances against LGBT content in the classroom.

In her local chapter, Trethewey told me she met a group of “like-minded” parents pushing back on what she felt was “propaganda” in public schools, and they decided to do something about it. With about a dozen members, the chapter started filing several “Right to Know” requests—the local version of the Freedom of Information Act—to find out what their children were being taught in the district. Trethewey was put in charge of investigating DEI.

In January 2023, Trethewey filed a Right to Know request for copies of all DEI materials “that were used to instruct or lead any training or programs to any staff, teacher, counselor, or student” in the district. Two days later, the district denied her request, arguing that the DEI training materials couldn’t be shared with the public because they were “trade secrets.”

“Trade secrets—what does that even mean?” Trethewey said she remembers thinking. “How do we have secrets in a public school?”

The district argued that—because Brown had developed the materials before it had employed him and because he also ran an education consulting firm—disclosing his “personal proprietary training material” to the public “would cause substantial harm” to his ability to compete in the crowded DEI market.

As a result, conservative think tank the Goldwater Institute stepped in to represent Trethewey pro bono—and sued the school district on her behalf.

On February 25, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania sided with Trethewey, concluding that DEI training materials presented to teachers and students at public schools was not a trade secret and, as such, should be released as public information.

“Brown did not identify a ‘formula’ or ‘algorithm’ that was the secret to the creation of his product,” President Judge Emerita Mary Hannah Leavitt wrote in her argument. “Because that product is widely shared to school district employees, it is not secret.”

One year earlier, the Michigan Supreme Court came to the almost opposite conclusion—ruling that materials produced by public school teachers “are not public records subject to disclosure for purposes of FOIA.” But the Pennsylvania decision marks a notable legal shift in favor of parents who oppose the teaching of political ideology in the classroom.

Trethewey credits the November election of Donald Trump with this change in thinking. Just two years ago, Moms for Liberty was dismissed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Now, the group’s agenda is being applied to federal law. In January, Trump signed a sweeping executive order eliminating DEI from all federal agencies, although this move has faced some pushback in federal court. He also directed the Department of Justice to “investigate, eliminate, and penalize illegal DEI and DEIA preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities in the private sector and in educational institutions that receive federal funds.”

Even the Downingtown Area School District seems to be changing with the tide. Last fall, the district changed Justin Brown’s title from “DEI Director” to the “Director of Student Relations and School Climate.” A spokesperson for Downingtown Area School District told The Free Press that the decision to alter Brown’s role was made in June 2024, long before Trump was elected. Now, she said Brown’s job is focused “on student voice, student engagement, and developing a positive school environment” and that the district has “shifted our diversity, equity, and inclusion departmental efforts to a broader focus, establishing the Student [Relations] and School Climate Department.” She declined to comment on Trethewey’s case.

Meanwhile, Trethewey’s battle with her district isn’t over. Despite the favorable court ruling, she still can’t access the materials she requested more than two years ago. The case has been remanded back to the local court, which is now tasked with deciding whether the DEI training materials could be considered “confidential proprietary information.” But Trethewey told me she has no intention of backing down; she will pursue her case in the lower courts until she is able to get her hands on the documents.

“I never expected to be fighting these kinds of fights. I just wanted to be a parent and raise my kids to the best of my ability,” she told me. “But I’m a fighter, and I don’t give up.”