The People vs. School Closures: Pittsburgh

Using State Civil Rights Law to Fight School Closures that Target Black Students in Pittsburgh 

On July 14, 2026, Advancement Project and our grassroots partner 412 Justice filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission on behalf of three Black families attending schools in the Pittsburgh Public Schools District (PPS). The complaint challenges the PPS Board of Directors’ vote on May 27, 2026, to close twelve schools and displace 6,000 students, predominantly in Black neighborhoods. The complaint alleges that the Board and District targeted Black students when choosing schools for closure, ignoring abundant community feedback that details how their plan discriminates against Black students.

Pittsburgh Public Schools Relied on Discriminatory Criteria to Close Schools in Black Neighborhoods

Pittsburgh Public Schools relied on utilization (a school’s enrollment number divided by the building’s potential capacity) to decide which schools to close. Utilization actually does not serve any legitimate educational purpose and tends to disproportionately harm Black students.

For nearly two years, 412 Justice organized families to inform the Board about how relying on utilization would result in school closures that harmed Black students and communities. Community members also provided alternatives to school closures. As a result of these efforts, the previous Board initially delayed and then voted down the school closure plan in November 2025. Yet, when new Board members assumed office in December, PPS violated its own procedures to reconsider the November 2025 vote and eventually approve the school closure plan.

We Need the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission to Step In

The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission is the agency tasked with protecting civil rights and rooting out discrimination in the workplace, housing, and places of public accommodations, like schools. The Commission has the power to investigate reports of discrimination, make findings, and direct bad actors to stop carrying policies that target Pennsylvanians on the basis of race, sex, disability, and other protected traits.

The Commission’s intervention in Pittsburgh is critical to protecting students in Pittsburgh’s Black neighborhoods from educational harms. Unless the Commission intervenes, these students will lose their schools at the end of the 2026–27 school year resulting in having to navigate longer, travel routes to an unfamiliar school. They will also lose access to unique educational opportunities not offered at their reassigned schools, such as an African-centered curriculum, project-based STEAM learning, and highly experienced Black educators.

Pittsburgh School Closures are Part of a National School Closures Crisis Targeting Black and Latine Communities

For the last several years, Advancement Project has observed how Black and Latine communities are harmed and targeted by the national school closures crisis.

Black and Latine communities, which are systemically denied equal access to education by our public school system, are on the front lines of the fight to not only protect neighborhood schools, but also build a free, liberatory system of education for all.

Who benefits from this systematic dismantling of our access to free public education?

1. Consultants who sign lucrative contracts advising cash-strapped school boards on how to close schools based on arbitrary measures that are unrelated to educational quality. As a result, school closures are often concentrated in communities that have been systemically under-resourced based on race.
2. Real estate developers, particularly in gentrifying cities, who profit from the resale of school buildings into market-rate housing and from the pushout of low-income Black families from neighborhoods that experience school closures.
3. Charter school operators who expand their contracts by opening new charter schools in closed public school buildings, enroll students living nearby who lost their public school, and pocket per-pupil expenditures funded by taxpayers while kicking out students they don’t want to deal with.

Who loses?

1. Students who suffer academic and behavioral setbacks associated with school closures, as well as families who face longer commutes and the frustration of trying to find a school that fits the needs of their children.
2. Neighborhoods who lose access to a polling location, community meeting space, and sports fields to use close to home. School closures are particularly devastating to low-income communities, who may rely on free programs and services available at their local schools.
3. Our democracy—particularly in districts where representation on school boards is tied to the existence of certain schools or when charter schools with unelected boards are the only schools in communities that have suffered school closures. As people lose their ability to have a say in their local schools through representation on their school board, they lose political power.

Advancement Project Stands in Solidarity with Black and Latine Communities Fighting To Save Their Schools

Advancement Project has a legacy of providing movement lawyering support to grassroots campaigns to save schools from closure. In 2014, Advancement Project supported members of the Journey for Justice Alliance in Chicago, Newark, and New Orleans who were fighting school closures in Black communities to file Title VI complaints with the U.S. Department of Education alleging that the mass school closures in those districts discriminated against Black students.

In 2022, grassroots partners alerted Advancement Project that school districts were once again trying to implement mass school closures in Black and Latine communities. Advancement Project attorneys convened a listening session with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) where grassroots organizers from across the country called attention to the harms of mass school closures targeting their communities. Advancement Project and the Southern Poverty Law Center sent a follow-up letter to OCR requesting agency guidance on discriminatory school closures.

Since then, Advancement Project has provided legal, policy, and strategic support to local campaigns across the country to save schools from closure, including sending formal opposition letters to school boards in San Antonio, Texas; Norfolk, Virginia; and Shreveport, Louisiana.

Join Us in the Fight to Save Our Local Schools!

Stand with us in solidarity with the families and organizers at 412 Justice! Follow 412 Justice on social media.

Take a stand against school closures in your community! Get organized! For practical tools and strategies, check out our Stop Closing Public Schools Action Kit (English/español) and our resource for school board members, “Changing the Narrative: How School Board Members Can Combat Misinformation and Champion Local Public Schools.”