Pennsylvania Human Relations commissioners are entrusted with safeguarding the civil rights of Pennsylvanians. They help oversee the agency responsible for investigating discrimination complaints, enforcing the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act, and promoting equal opportunity in employment, housing, education, and public accommodations.
Every year, the Commission investigates hundreds of complaints alleging discrimination in employment, housing, education, and public accommodations. For many Pennsylvanians, it is the first and sometimes only place they can turn when they believe they have been denied equal treatment under state law.
That is precisely why Governor Josh Shapiro’s appointment of former State Representative Seth Grove to the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission is so troubling.
Appointments to independent commissions should inspire confidence that commissioners will faithfully carry out the mission of the agencies they oversee. In Grove’s case, however, his legislative record raises serious questions about whether he is the right person to help guide Pennsylvania’s premier civil rights agency.
Throughout his tenure in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Grove consistently found himself on the opposite side of efforts to expand protections for LGBTQ+ Pennsylvanians.
As chair of the House State Government Committee, Grove controlled the fate of the Fairness Act, legislation that would have explicitly added sexual orientation and gender identity to the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act’s nondiscrimination protections. The bill, first introduced decades ago and reintroduced repeatedly, never received a committee vote during his leadership.
Committee chairs possess enormous influence in Harrisburg. Bills can remain in committee indefinitely without hearings or votes, regardless of public support or the number of cosponsors. For LGBTQ+ advocates, the Fairness Act became emblematic of that reality.
Grove’s opposition extended beyond committee procedure.
In 2018, he signed onto a letter urging then-Governor Tom Wolf to reverse the Department of Health’s decision to modernize Pennsylvania birth certificates by replacing “mother” and “father” with gender-neutral parental designations. The change recognized the legal reality of same-sex parent families following marriage equality. Equality Pennsylvania argued at the time that the effort targeted LGBTQ+ families under the guise of administrative concerns.
That same year, Grove introduced House Bill 861, legislation that opponents warned would invalidate many municipal employment protections adopted after 2015, including numerous LGBTQ-inclusive nondiscrimination ordinances. Many advocates viewed it as an attempt to strip local governments of their ability to protect residents where the state had failed to act.
Years later, Grove again appeared alongside legislation criticized by LGBTQ+ organizations when he cosponsored House Bill 581, the “Parental Rights in Education Act.” The proposal was described as Pennsylvania’s version of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law because it restricted classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity while requiring parental notification in circumstances critics argued could endanger vulnerable LGBTQ+ students.
Taken individually, any one of these actions might be dismissed as a policy disagreement. Taken together, they form a consistent legislative record.
This isn’t about demanding ideological purity. People with differing political philosophies can, and should, serve in public office. But appointments should make sense in light of an agency’s mission.
The Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission exists to combat discrimination, expand equal opportunity, and build public confidence that civil rights laws will be fairly enforced. LGBTQ+ Pennsylvanians have spent decades fighting to secure explicit protections under those very laws. Many of those efforts encountered resistance from lawmakers, including Grove.
For LGBTQ+ Pennsylvanians who watched the Fairness Act languish year after year, who have relied on local nondiscrimination ordinances because statewide protections never materialized, and who have repeatedly seen their rights become political bargaining chips, this appointment sends a confusing and discouraging message.
Governor Shapiro has built much of his public reputation on supporting LGBTQ+ equality. His administration has defended transgender Pennsylvanians, celebrated Pride Month, and consistently spoken about inclusion. Those commitments make this appointment all the more difficult to reconcile.
Reasonable people can disagree about taxes, budgets, or transportation policy. Civil rights are different.
The question isn’t whether Seth Grove is entitled to his political beliefs. He is. The question is whether someone whose legislative career repeatedly placed him in opposition to expanding LGBTQ+ civil rights is the person who should help oversee Pennsylvania’s civil rights enforcement agency.
Based on his public record, that’s a question Governor Shapiro and every Pennsylvanian who believes in equal protection under the law should be prepared to answer.
Grove is scheduled to be sworn in on July 27. His confirmation may be complete, but public scrutiny of this appointment should not end there.