Published July 14, 2026 at 1:19 PM EDT

The parents of five Pittsburgh Public Schools students filed a complaint with Pennsylvania’s top civil rights agency on Tuesday, alleging that the district’s impending school closures unlawfully discriminate against Black students.

The families bringing the complaint are enrolled at Manchester PreK-8 on the North Side, Miller African-Centered Academy in the Hill District and Woolslair PreK-5 in Bloomfield. All three schools are slated to close in June 2027 under the sweeping facilities plan city school board members approved this spring.

Adaku Onyeka-Crawford, an attorney with the Washington-based Advancement Project representing the complainants, said she hopes the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission (PHRC) will investigate the school closures and issue a preliminary injunction that prevents them from moving forward.

“Although we are representing five named clients, this will have an impact on students writ large, particularly Black students,” Onyeka-Crawford told WESA.

The complaint alleges that the closure plan disproportionately burdens Black students. According to a data analysis by 412 Justice and the Education Rights Network — two advocacy groups supporting the complainants — Black students make up 62% of students whose schools will close next year, even though they made up only 49% of students enrolled at PPS during the 2025-2026 school year.

In May, school board members voted 6-2 to move forward with the facilities plan after nearly three years of deliberation. Much of that time was spent discussing each school’s utilization rate, or the number of students enrolled divided by the school’s total capacity.

According to the district’s calculations, Manchester and Miller are only about 30% and 43% full, respectively. Woolslair’s utilization rate is 70%. PPS administrators say they’d like to see a utilization of 75% to 85% at each school.

But the complainants argue that these measures are neither reliable nor neutral, and instead reflect the district’s failure to adequately resource its schools and retain families.

“If you starve certain schools of resources, and those schools are Black schools, then enrollment is going to decline as families seek other opportunities,” Onyeka-Crawford said. “And then you have the underutilization that is then used to close more schools. And it is just this vicious cycle.”

“Even facially neutral policies, if they have a discriminatory impact, are illegal under state and also federal civil rights law,” she added.

This isn’t the first time advocates have asked the PHRC to investigate alleged discrimination at PPS. In 1992, parents with Advocates for African American Students in the Pittsburgh Public Schools filed a complaint alleging that the district violated the state’s human relations act, citing excessive discipline for Black students and their exclusion from special programs and opportunities.

It took 14 years for PPS and PHRC to settle the matter, agreeing to ongoing monitoring of the district’s treatment of Black students.

“And so, because the PHRC has a history of holding PPS to account, and because they are currently under the settlement, we are hopeful that the PHRC will exercise its jurisdiction here and, again, get PPS to stop their school closure plan and make sure that educational opportunities are accessible to our clients and also other Black students in Pittsburgh,” Onyeka-Crawford said.

That includes the unique programs available to students at Miller African-Centered Academy, the district’s only elementary school with a focus on Black culture and African heritage.

“At Miller, my children are taught principles of pride and self-determination,” said Naomi Chambers, whose two children are represented in the complaint. “They learn about the history and specific resilience of the Hill District they call home. They are excited about school and their classes. They feel safe and nurtured.”

But the district has not shared any plans to relocate this environment elsewhere. Chambers said removing Hill District neighborhood school will also force resource-strapped parents to travel farther away to get their kids to and from school.

“Communities most in need are losing public education options and I don’t understand that as a plan,” she said.

PPS public relations director Ebony Pugh declined to comment on the complaint.