Chestnut Hill Awaiting Mediation in Racial Discrimination Case

Chestnut Hill College (PA), run by the Sisters of St. Joseph, is awaiting a mediation with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission (or PHRC) in a case of racial discrimination that has brought the school criticism for how it has handled the legal proceedings.  The college has said that it did not discriminate against the student who filed a complaint with the commission, but it also said that the state's human relations commission had no jurisdiction of Chestnut Hill because the school's religious nature made it distinctly private. It filed a lawsuit against the organization, Chestnut Hill claims, to "test the limited question of whether the jurisdiction of the PHRC applied to Catholic institutions of higher learning."