## Facts

- The Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA) regulated interscholastic athletics for most Pennsylvania public high schools, and membership functioned as a practical prerequisite for participation in statewide competition.
- A PIAA bylaw (Article XIX, § 3B) categorically barred female students from practicing or competing against male students in interscholastic athletic contests.
- The prohibition applied across sports and levels without regard to contact level, safety conditions, or any individual student’s ability.
- The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, through the Attorney General acting in a representative capacity, filed an equity action seeking to invalidate the bylaw as unlawful sex discrimination.
- The Commonwealth moved for summary judgment, asserting violations of the Pennsylvania Equal Rights Amendment (Pa. Const. art. I, § 28) and the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause.

## Issues

1. Whether a bylaw that forbids girls from practicing or competing against boys in interscholastic athletics is facially unconstitutional under the Pennsylvania Equal Rights Amendment.
2. Whether the same bylaw violates the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause.

## Decision

- The Commonwealth Court granted summary judgment for the Commonwealth.
- The court declared Article XIX, § 3B unconstitutional on its face under the Pennsylvania Equal Rights Amendment.
- The court enjoined enforcement of the bylaw and ordered PIAA to permit girls to practice and compete with boys beginning with the 1975–76 school year.
- The court resolved the case on state constitutional grounds and did not rely on federal equal protection analysis for the dispositive holding.

## Legal Principles

- The Pennsylvania Equal Rights Amendment prohibits governmental or state-related rules that deny or abridge legal equality because of sex.
- A facial sex classification is presumptively invalid under the Pennsylvania ERA and cannot be justified by generalized assumptions about sex-based physical differences.
- Legitimate safety concerns do not support an across-the-board sex-based exclusion where narrower, non-sex-based criteria (such as sport-specific rules or individual fitness standards) are available.
- A categorical prohibition on girls practicing or competing with boys, without individualized assessment, constitutes impermissible sex discrimination under the Pennsylvania ERA.

## Conclusion

The court held that PIAA’s blanket ban on girls practicing or competing against boys in interscholastic sports violated the Pennsylvania Equal Rights Amendment, invalidated the bylaw as facially unconstitutional, and ordered equal access beginning with the next school year.


Commonwealth v. Pa. Interscholastic Athletic Ass’n, 334 A.2d 839 (Pa. Commw. Ct. 1975)