Ben Vonderheide, a local fathers’ rights activist, has been long fighting what he considers a wholesale discrimination against men in the Lancaster County, particularly through court-mandated custody arrangements and too-easily-granted protection from abuse orders. Near the end of December, Vonderheide paid a visit to the County’s Human Relations Commission, attracted to the office’s mission of taking up complaints of discrimination. But, according to Vonderheide, Human Relations Commission Director Leslie Hyson turned him away before long.
At the January 13 Lancaster County commissioners meeting, Vonderheide explained that he first learned of the Commission last fall, after reading a newspaper article about complaints that a man filed against the School District of Lancaster. The man complained of racial discrimination after having been barred from his girlfriend’s daughter’s cheerleading meeting. Vonderheide told NewsLanc that, seeing the office take on a complaint such as this, he was eager to share his efforts with Human Relations Commission staff.
When he visited the office in late December, Vonderheide said, he was met with Hyson, who said something to the effect of “Didn’t [Commissioner] Dennis Stuckey tell you that we can’t do anything for you?”—in Vonderheide’s words. “I felt powerless,” he said, “I felt like I was invisible.” Hyson later told Vonderheide that her office was not authorized to take on complaints against the courts, which account for the majority of Vonderheide’s activism.
In an interview with NewsLanc, Hyson said that her statement regarding Dennis Stuckey was simply referencing a public comment from the county commissioner at December’s County budget meeting, after Vonderheide had announced some of his complaints. “[Stuckey indicated] that there are certain things that can’t be done here at this level,” Hyson said.
“His complaint is against the court,” Hyson asserted, “We have no jurisdiction over the court. Even the State Human Relations Commission does not have jurisdiction over the courts. I had [Vonderheide] in my office one day, and I explained it to him out front: We don’t have the jurisdiction. I could waste taxpayer dollars and have [the complaint] thrown out, which I know will happen from the beginning. That would really be a practice in futility.”
Vonderheide claimed that, although the Commission may be unable to go after the courts, complaints could also be filed against legal firms and other entities involved in what he calls the “disenfranchisement” of fathers in Lancaster County. Vonderheide characterized the office’s dismissal of his efforts as sympomatic of a widespread reluctance to take up his controversial cause.
