CHALLENGING THE DISPARATE IMPACT OF PENNSYLVANIA’S CHILD ABUSE REPORTING AND INVESTIGATION STATUTES UNDER THE PENNSYLVANIA CONSTITUTION’S ANTIDISCRIMINATION PROVISIONS
Volume 98, No. 4, Summer 2026
By Courtney M. Alexander & Marsha Levick [PDF]

Under contemporary Fourteenth Amendment jurisprudence, legal challenges to the disparate racial impact of state child abuse reporting systems will fail if the litigants are unable to prove actual intent to discriminate by state actors. However, while such federal constitutional remedies are largely unavailable to redress the racially disparate impact of state laws and systems, state constitutional antidiscrimination provisions can fill this gap. This Essay explores the contours of a challenge to Pennsylvania’s child abuse reporting and investigation system under Pennsylvania’s recently adopted anti-race discrimination constitutional amendment as well as other antidiscrimination provisions of the Commonwealth’s Constitution. Section I of this Essay provides a historical overview of child abuse laws in the United States, the evolution of child protection laws in Pennsylvania, and the disproportionate rates at which Black, Hispanic, and other families of color are surveilled, reported, and separated from one another under these laws.