Equal Opportunity and Diversity Committee

Chaired by Commissioner Jessie L. Smith, Esq., the EO Committee works to promote diversity and inclusion and lessen discrimination in all three branches of government and legal profession.

Committee Feature

In its Final Report, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Committee on Racial and Gender Bias in the Justice System chronicled the difficulty of determining the racial, ethnic, and gender composition of certain justice system personnel but nevertheless determined that women attorneys and attorneys of color were significantly underrepresented in both court appointments and among their attorney colleagues more broadly.

The Committee recommended that the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania include a voluntary demographic check-off box on the registration form issued annually to attorneys licensed in Pennsylvania. By collecting demographic data, attorneys, judges, legal educators, and other system employers and personnel can establish a baseline from which they can benchmark their progress in increasing diversity in their educational institutions, companies, law firms, and appointments. In 2018, the Supreme Court’s Disciplinary Board (the “Board”) adopted this recommendation, thereby establishing a resource for diversity efforts throughout the Commonwealth. Each year, the Committee receives the demographic data collected by the Board and produces a graphic summary of the data. The Committee distributes the summary, along with the full Board Report, to bar associations, President Judges, and advocacy organizations throughout the Commonwealth.

One of the first recommendations of the Supreme Court Committee was to implement codes of conduct applicable to judges and attorneys precluding discriminatory conduct. In 2023, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania approved the amendments to the Judicial Code for which Interbranch Commission advocated. It took several years for a similar measure (Pennsylvania Rule of Professional Conduct 8.4(g), which prohibits attorneys from knowingly engaging in harassment or discrimination) to be approved in April 2024, having withstood legal challenges that went all the way to the United States Supreme Court.

The Committee’s current initiatives include the following:

• Conducting internal education session on the role of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission (“PHRC”).
• Submitting comments to the Civil Procedural Rules Committee on its proposal to adopt a statewide rule governing name change petitions in Pennsylvania to simplify and modernize the name change process.
• Contributing to an amicus brief in support of the doctrine of “parentage by intent.” As the availability and use of Assistive Reproductive Technology (“ART”) continues to expand, the doctrine ensures that families created with the assistance of ART are on equal legal footing with families who conceive unassisted.
• Reviewing and is working with stakeholders to support legislation designed to prevent discriminatory practices of schools receiving OSTC and EITC funding.
• Organizing webinar to highlight local non-discrimination ordinances. 
• Publishing and distributing in-depth data regarding the demographic composition of the Pennsylvania judiciary, the General Assembly, and the executive branch.