The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Catholic school that terminated a teacher for having premarital sex, according to court documents.
Hate the Catholic Church (I do) or religion as a whole (I also do), but per the article:
St. Theresa School argued Crisitello’s pregnancy violated the terms of her employment agreement, which required “employees to adhere to the teachings of the Catholic Church and refrain from premarital sex,” court documents say.
Agree or disagree, that all fine, but the exact reason for termination is verbatim in her contract which she signed well ahead of being fired. Is it prudish, archaic, and nonsensical? Yes. But did she sign a contract saying she wouldn’t do that and then get fired for doing that thing? Also yes.
Sometimes, the contents of contracts are illegal even when they are signed. It’s apparently not the case here according to the Court, but the question can be worth to ask.
You can’t sign away actual rights, but you can agree to pretty much anything else. It’s been well established that companies can fire you for any off-duty behavior they deem inappropriate, as long as the reason doesn’t conflict with a protected class. This is the same mechanism that allows people to be fired for being a Nazi or participating in the Jan 6th insurrection, even before being charged with a crime.
Being pregnant is a protected class under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, though: https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/enforcement-guidance-pregnancy-discrimination-and-related-issues#IA1
While there can probably fire her for having premarital sex, they legally can’t fire her for being pregnant. If she became pregnant through IVF, for example, then there was no sex involved.
You see, one of these things is a personal choice between two consenting adults and the other is promoting criminal hate, violence, and sedition which negatively affects large groups of people.
The idea that a job contract can dictate your sex life is completely fucking deranged.
I agree and I’m not saying it makes sense to rationale people but objectively in this case, the optics hold water. This is a fundamentalist Catholic school with nuns. The teacher was unmarried and was also pregnant. The optics of an unwed pregnant teacher, teaching kids whose parents put them in a Fundy school where pre-marital sex is an explicit no-no does put the staff in a very awkward position.
The awkward position of their evil patriarchial cannibal death cult beliefs being exposed?
Papists shouldn’t be allowed to run schools. No religion should.
Yes.
And while I agree with the idea that churches shouldn’t run schools, they do and have done for a long time, and as long as people keep sending their kids there, they will continue.
As I said, I agree completely. But the teacher was hired into that environment and knowingly signed a puritanesque ethics clause and broke it. That’s why the case was upheld ultimately.
So what? Just because you put something down in a piece of paper doesn’t mean it should be legal.
Fuck their awkward position
Marijuana is legal in my state. All the empty businesses in town are now filled with pot stores.
My job does random drug testing. If they detect marijuana, that’s instant firing, no recourse (at will employment).
The idea that a job can dictate anything I do outside of work is deranged.
That’s religion for you
Very well. I will now be requiring all my women employees to not get above the age of 30 and all my minority employees to always look white.
Oh wait, I can’t do that? Is it because we have non-discrimination laws?
A school does not have religious freedom, a person does. A school doesn’t pray, a school doesn’t worry about angry skydaddy, a school doesn’t think it has a soul. A school is a collective of individuals. Those individuals have religious freedoms, not the collective that they built. If we don’t allow corporations to get around these types of laws we should not be allowing schools to.
Why are you defending the fake rights of a school and supporting their bigotry?
I read the article and summarized it. You should try it, you’d sound like less of an asshole. You disagree, that’s wonderful. Nobody is interested in your rant about it.
How did you determine that I didn’t read it? Sorry you hate woman who have and enjoy sex. Have fun shilling for the worldwide pedo league
Because you sound like an idiot that didn’t read the article and is knee jerk reacting and going on a soap box rant. You disagreeing with the outcome of something is not the same as it being illegal. Also fuck yourself, I’m an atheist. Learn to differentiate fact and opinion jackass.
I don’t believe you.
This is not a legal passage. It is violating your autonomie and is highly discriminating. Why do i have to explain that in 2023…?
You can sign a contract with problematic passages. Your signing doesn’t make illigal stuff legal. And you don’t agree with illigal stuff just by signing. It is the same with rental agreements or other contracs.
The lore protects people from abuse of power and arbitrariness.
This is not a legal passage.
The entire article is about how it was upheld in court so…
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Even worse, if they do they feel like they did something wrong.
It took me under a minute to find the email addresses of the school and the lawyer who attacked that art teacher.
I do so hope they don’t get hate emails.
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So? An illegal clause in a contract doesn’t suddenly become legal once you sign it.
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