What else would they do, install surveillance cameras in female teachers' bedrooms?

Which is why the Right is currently trying to get religious exemptions for anti-gay bigotry.

I could be wrong here, but I think as long as they have more than 15 employees, they are subject to the PDA.

They can't fire you per-say for getting pregnant but they can fire you for behavior that publicly-violates the moral-turpitude clause of your employment (i.e. non-marital sex) as evidenced by observable conditions. (i.e. unwed pregnancy)

It's a needle-thin line...but they can walk it and win in court 100 times out of 100: she wasn't fired for getting pregnant, she was fired for setting a bad example to students. The standard employment contract used by dioceses nation-wide for Catholic-school specifies that you can be fired for publicly-observable actions and outcomes of violations of the Catholic doctrine. It's a valid contractual term and one she freely entered into.

First-hand knowledge, my mother served 2 terms on the local Archdiocesan school board and 3 years of a 4-year term on the school board of the local Catholic HS as the parental representative. This never came up in this sense but the teachers union fought to take it out in contract negotiations and leveraged a well-deserved raise for its continued inclusion.

Any contract provision that is in conflict with civil rights law is unenforceable. If this weren't true, every employer in America would force employees to sign away their civil rights as a condition of employment in order to protect themselves from civil rights judgements. So whatever she signed is irrelevant to title VII. Title VII protects her from getting fired for being pregnant. She can and should file a claim with the EEOC or sue them in district court.

Thrown out. Repeatedly. No basis for a civil rights violation claim.

Also courts have consistently upheld the validity of moral turpitude clauses in employment contracts. Employers have the right to require moral action of employees, even in their off-work hours.

Thank you for playing. You lose but here's a toaster for your efforts.

What should be noted is the lengths the Catholic church goes to in order to micromanage people who may not even be Catholics. This is why organized religion deserves absolutely no political influence and their dogma should be limited to only those who willingly participate.

Instead, she chose to carry the Child and face judgement.

As long as people choose to teach, work, and send their children to religious schools this will continue to happen. When you work for or are a student at one of these schools you agree to their terms and they will enforce them.

The only solution is to refuse to have anything to do with parochial schools if you do not want them to intrude into your personal life.

A Bunch of Homophobic Creeps and Child Sodomizers

If the conditions of one's employment are truly untenable, then it's time to look elsewhere for work.

Just sayin'

Please see Kiva's comment ->

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014718598#post4

The problem is the best schools are the Public Schools. Now certain private schools are better then public schools, but as a whole they are NOT. The main reason bring is the quality of the school mostly depends on the input of parents into the School. The more parental input the better the School (Thus schools with PTAs, Parent Teachers Associations, tend to be better then Schools with PTOs, Parent Teacher's organizations for the National PTA insist that any school with a PTA include parental input and PTA is a registered trademark so to have a PTA the school must meet the requirements of the National PTA).

Thus one sign of a better school is the existence of a PTA in that school. The existence of a PTO is a sign of an inferior school (PTO is NOT a registered trademark but sounds close to PTA).

Some Catholic Schools do not have PTAs, but being community based often have similar structures, thus tend to have high parental input into the school.

Other signs of a bad school is an emphasis on sports. Not that sports is bad, but if it is the first thing the school talks about when they talk about themselves it is a bad sign.

Now, many public schools fall into the trap of seeing their sports program (mostly Football and Basketball) as the school identity. Catholic schools rarely fall into this trap (Through some do).

Thus, Catholic Schools tend to be right behind Public Schools when it comes to quality of education. The chief reason for being second is the lack of funds do to the lack of access to money from local taxes, thus less money to spend on what is needed for education.

Now, as a whole, the rest of the "private" schools are below both Public Schools and Catholic Schools, mostly do to lack of parental input. Some private school emphasis their sports program (like many collages do, for example Norte Dame University but this is a issue of pre-collage education not collage education) but when it comes to high schools, how good a football team they have seems to be in reverse proportion to how when students learn in that school, i.e. the better the football team, the worse education the school provides).

I bring this up for, taken as a whole, Public Schools are still the best schools in the US. Catholic Schools are a close Second. Private schools are way behind both,

There are exceptions to this rule. Inner City Schools have had a problem with education for over 50 years, mostly as the better educated parents moved to the Suburbs and parents who tend to move more often tended to end up in inner city schools for that is where the cheap housing was and is. Students whose parents move a lot (who also tend to be the poorest income earners) tend to to the hardest to educate and cost the most to educate. Thus the overall quality of these schools have declined.

On the other hand most of these schools tend to have very good education for those students who parents do NOT move a lot. Thus in many inner school districts, the Catholic Schools tend to come out ahead for the parents of the students in Catholic Schools tend to be more stable and thus provide a better home environment to support the student's education. The Public Schools in those same districts also provides such services to those students who have the most support at home.

When I was in an Inner City Public Schools 40 years ago I saw this in action. Those students who came from homes with solid families and support at home for their education, you had all type of educational options equal to any provided in the surrounding suburbs (I was in the group of students took Latin, Calculus, Chemistry I and II and Physics, Dance was offered, you could learn auto repair and other trades). On the other hand these inner city schools had students who had no support at home and it showed, lack of interest in education and a clear need for extra help for such students, these are your "High Cost to Educate Students&quot .

Now the existence of these high cost to educate students is what brings people impression of inner city schools down. Most inner city schools go through the motions of educating these students, but most do not have the resources to provide them the intense almost one on one education they need.

My point is if the student has the support at home to get an education in almost any public school, even an inner city one, they can get it. The same with people in Catholic Schools. There are exceptions to this rule, but such exceptions are rarer then most people think.

On the other hand, private schools, do to their lack of access to tax dollars AND lack of access to assistance from their local Catholic Church, tends NOT to have the financial resources to provide the education opportunities of public schools. They often claim they are better, but the Statistics tends NOT to support that claim. Worse, given that most private schools weed out the Most Expensive to Educate Students from their student body, they tend NOT even to match up with the students of the local Public Schools, when that body is viewed as one (both the high achievers AND the Most Expensive to Educate Students).

Here are some reports that found that economics of the Student's family was much more important then if they went to a private or public school:

That school wasn't actually IN the town, it was in the middle of the nearby city.
How bad does a public school have to be to lose its accreditation?

Didn't go there.

she would still have a job?

without having received the Holy Sacrament of Matrimony.

If the baby's DNA isn't an exact match to the mother's, there is denial or massive ignorance involved.

Oh, but wait, she can't be a priest.

Nevermind.

Maybe she'll give up the Cult now!

Catholics schools can hire non-Catholic teachers. They also have non-Catholic members of the student body.

die by the rightwing religious nuts. She knew who she worked for.

...that might have prevented her pregnancy unless she specifically wanted to become pregnant. The clue train has left the station.

she doesn't have to be married to have kids. What religious nonsense.

to collect a paycheck from rightwing religious nuts. That's the bargain she made.

if she said she had been raped and had refused to get an abortion. Would they still want her fired?? Just can't satisfy some people.

In cases of legitimate rape the female body has a way of shutting that whole conception thing down, remember? So her child CANT be a product of rape.

That said, I'm having trouble feeling sorry for this woman. She was happy enough to be part of the problem until what went around came around.

Most of them won't take kids with special needs like Down Syndrome or autism. Oh, they'll insist that abortion is not the answer and, as the father of a five year old with DS, I'm on their side of that argument. But forget about trying to get such a child into their schools. They are quite happy to plead a lack of resources and point you to a public school.

have been transferred to another school; the whole unsavory episode swept under the rug and the victim portrayed as the instigator.

Say three Hail Mary's and be on your way.

They are protected by the system

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2008/01_02/U09558312.PDF

...and the Catholic Church idolized her for it.

Mary and Joseph completed marriage rites, but just had not consummated the marriage. Whether or not that means they are married depends on whether or not you consider a couple married before they do the old in-and-out.

Good grief. If the Catholic Church loves the fetus so much, one would think they'd want the mother to have a job to be able to provide food for the child once born.

This may not be illegal if she had signed a contract, but that doesn't mean that it should not be.

Having a job - any job - should not mean that you have to give up your personal life. Having a job should only mean how you conduct yourself during working hours.