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         Fired Teacher, Unwed and Pregnant, Sues

NEW YORK (AP) -- The New York Civil Liberties Union has filed a federal discrimination complaint against a Catholic school, charging that it unjustly fired an unmarried teacher for being pregnant.

"I don't understand how a religion that prides itself on forgiving and on valuing life could terminate me because I'm pregnant and choosing to have this baby," Michelle McCusker said Monday at a news conference to announce the suit.

The 26-year-old preschool teacher was fired last month from St. Rose of Lima in Queens, according to published reports. The Diocese of Brooklyn also was named in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint.

"This is a difficult situation for every person involved, but the school had no choice but to follow the principles contained in the teachers' personnel handbook," diocese spokesman Frank DeRosa said in a statement.

The handbook says that each teacher must "convey the teachings of the Catholic faith by his or her words and actions."

Lawyers at the NYCLU, which filed the suit on McCusker's behalf, argued that administrators enforced the policy in a way that disproportionately affects women.

"The school used her pregnancy as a marker," attorney Cassandra Stubbs said. "How do they determine if male employees engage in premarital sex?"

It's not the first time the NYCLU has argued such a case. In 2003, the unmarried director of an after-school program run by a Catholic charity in Buffalo was demoted when she became pregnant. The equal employment commission found that the charity had violated federal anti-discrimination laws, the NYCLU said.

That charity agreed to ban discrimination based on marital status or pregnancy.

Comments

[Phoenix]

>"How do they determine if male employees engage in premarital sex?"<

They're the ones smiling in the all-Catholic environment.

I have to side with the school on this. For crying out loud, the biggest social problem we have in this country is caused by out-of-wedlock birth. Why promote it with little kids watching Teacher on a Pedestal give birth as a single woman.

I am sick of watching all our standards for decency get tossed by the PC Police. It's not as if she's working at Wal-Mart or as a car mechanic. She is a huge influence in the lives of little impressionable kids.

[Moze]

I agree.

What's twisted about this is that it's possibly precedent setting--not in the sense of what religion can be taught in a religious school, but in terms of what pc/secular hoops a religious school must jump through. I can envision entire gaggles of ACLU lawyers salivating over this...

Cheers,

[Phoenix]

Let them salivate. If it's written in the school's code of conduct, and the future employee signs it agreeing to its tenants, then how can the ACLU win its case. I don't know the legal term - knowledge aforethought?? If you know the rules going in and sign a legal, binding document agreeing to uphold those rules - seems to me, the onus is on you if you mess up.

However, I agree that parochial schools will be looking long and hard at their employee manuals and making sure they have all bases covered and stated in graphic detail.

Anyone know of anything the ACLU does that is good???