Teacher fired for premarital sex

Teacher fired for premarital sex
By Mike Celizic
June 14, 2010

The couple sat close together with her right hand clasped in his left hand and her left arm cradling the 8-month-old daughter whose conception cost the woman her job.

The couple’s sin, according to her former employer, Southland Christian School in St. Cloud, Fla., is fornication — having sex before they got married.

Jarretta Hamilton and her husband of 16 months, Samuel Treftz, told TODAY’s Ann Curry Monday that the termination violated federal anti-discrimination laws. In addition, they allege in a pending lawsuit, the school’s principal, Jon Ennis, invaded Hamilton’s privacy by telling other teachers and the parents of her students the exact reason she was fired.

“When they let me go, they told the entire staff in a staff meeting that I had been fired and the reason why they let me go. And then they called all of my parents to my fourth-grade students and told them as well,” Hamilton said.

Ennis declined to appear on TODAY, citing a lawsuit filed by Hamilton against the school. But in a prerecorded report filed by NBC News’ Mike Taibbi, Ennis was asked if he stood by the firing. “Yes, absolutely,” he replied.
In a letter sent to her attorney, Edward Gay, last July, the school’s administrator, Julie Ennis, wrote:

"Jarretta was asked not to return because of a moral issue that was disregarded, namely fornication, sex outside of marriage. The employment application, which she filled out, clearly states that as a leader before our students we require all teachers to maintain and communicate the values and purpose of our school.”

That’s a long way from saying teachers are prohibited from having premarital sex, the couple argue.

In the letter explaining the termination to Gay, Julie Ennis ended by asking Hamilton to give up the lawsuit.

“We request that Jarretta withdraw her complaint and consider the testimony of the Lord,” the letter concludes.


When the principal asked if her child had been conceived before her marriage, "I was honest about it," Hamilton said. "I didn't know it would cost me my job."


Read the full article at:

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/37683770/ns/today-today_people/?GT1=43001

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She signed an agreement to follow the values and morals of the school. She didn't do so.

As her attorney explained:

Gay, who joined the couple for the TODAY interview, said that pastors and clergy have the right to make moral decisions regarding church personnel, but this case is different because Hamilton was a teacher.

“The courts have consistently ruled that a private school is just like any other employer. As long as there’s more than 50 employees, they are governed by the law regarding discrimination,” Gay said. “The teachers are serving a secular purpose, and therefore they are governed by federal laws of discrimination.”

describe him?

Would you consider the judge just an ordinary run-of-the-mill bigot or some right-wing nutjob with an agenda?

hmmmmmm . . . maybe just a tad bit of bias . . .

in support of the right-wing school authorities is in order.

But, what do you think?

You know what I think.

Are you for or against the school teacher in her discrimination lawsuit?

she should do so.

If she didn't want to follow those standards, then she should not sign the pledge.

I think it will come down to that. Were there set standards that were shared with her? Did she agree to follow those standards?

It is not a matter of being for or against the teacher and her actions. It is about being for or against the lawsuit.

That is what I think.

But, if you want to defend a right-wing employers "right" to discriminate against and fire people for reasons having nothing to do with their jobs, even when it is clearly illegal, I suppose you can.

Now, if she was a representative or member of the church they could remove her .... in fact they could expell her from the church.

But that's not what we are dealing with here now, is it?

If they fired a teacher for being gay would you also support them?

she signed a statement to "maintain and communicate the values and purpose of " Southland Christian School.

I am not defending anyone's right to discriminate. Let's not get ridiculous.

And of course I would not support firing a teacher for being gay. That is also ridiculous.

Does a statement agreeing to abide be certain standards mean anything or not? I think signing that statement should mean something. I guess this might be where we differ. Perhaps you see nothing wrong with signing that statement and then ignoring your pledge. Did I get that right?


hmmmm - on edit had to fix the quote. For some reason that in parenthese is not included.

are certain conditions.

"Does a statement agreeing to abide be certain standards mean anything or not?"

Not if you sign a statement or lie on a job application in order to get the job from some right-wing needle nosed s.o.b.!

It all depends upon the content of the statement and/or questions on the job application.

This is the real world where we have employers that may be extreme right-wingers, dishonest and who try and weed out or fire potential liberal/progressive "troublemakers" who might try and organize a union, violate their so-called "moral values" or engage in political activities opposed by the far right.


Employers have and still do ask personal questions that have nothing to do with the actual job skills and requirements. Many people have had to lie on their applications in order to get hired. When employers ask questions about drug use, union affiliations, your participation in various protests and movements, being arrested in protests, political affiliations an applicant should lie if they want the job. If you don't you're foolish and just won't get hired!

"Perhaps you see nothing wrong with signing that statement and then ignoring your pledge. Did I get that right?"

Yes indeed!

Have you ever heard of the "yellow dog contracts" that workers had to sign a century ago in order to get hired. They had to pledge their total loyalty to the employer and pledge to never join a union. Do you think those millions of workers should have honored those contracts?

I don't.

And fortunately the workers didn't!

----------------------------


A yellow-dog contract (or a "yellow dog contract" or a yellow-dog clause<1> of a contract or an Ironclad Oath) is an agreement between an employer and an employee in which the employee agrees, as a condition of employment, not to be a member of a labor union. In the United States, such contracts were, until the 1930s, widely used by employers to prevent the formation of unions, most often by permitting employers to take legal action against union organizers. In 1932, yellow-dog contracts were outlawed in the United States under the Norris-LaGuardia Act.<2><3>



And the workers didn't.

what's interesting is that you would even want to work there . . . to the point of lying on your application. I don't think I could work there.

And my word does mean something . . . so I would not sign that pledge.


To each his own.

"what's interesting is that you would even want to work there . . . to the point of lying on your application."

Actually I've done it for exactly the opposite reason .... because I wanted to work at that company and wouldn't be hired if they were aware of my past union activities. Ever hear of employers blacklisting workers?



"And my word does mean something . . . so I would not sign that pledge."


And you would not get the job. Would you rather have your family starve and be thrown out in the street?

(2) have my family starve and be thrown out into the street.

Surely there are other alternatives between those two.

Probably not, however, if a point is to be made.

It appears that you have a job you like, haven't been downsized and face no immediate threat of being jobless for an extended period of time.

However, tens of millions of people in the past few years have lost their jobs and faced either downsizing into a lower paying job without benefits or prolonged unemployment.

For them, the choices are much more limited than yours. They do whatever it takes to get a job or be thrown out of your home and live in the streets.

And in order to have any chance of obtaining employment even in a job they might not like, they have to lie on their job applications and violate any loyalty pledges they might be compelled to sign if they get the job.

I have a hard time relating to signing a pledge with my employer knowing I will not live up to it.

Let's say that one signs a pledge in order to get a job. Then isn't keeping that pledge equally as important in order to keep the job? After all - getting the job in the first place was critical to the well-being of one's family.

Karnac says.....yes, it does.

Supposedly the principal publicly announced the reason for the firing to the other faculty as well as called parents of her students and told them as well. He absolutely had no right to do that.

But that's a completely different issue.

employer which her supervisor (the principal) completely trashed. There was no compelling reason he had to reveal the details to other faculty and parents.

Not any more than a private business can and if that school can engage in this particular form of discrimination I don't think the lawyer would have taken the case.

A catholic school fired a teacher a few weeks ago because they found out she was an aetheist. She didn't tell her students, or a parent, or her fellow teachers, or her bosse she was an aetheist. Someone found out that she joined an aetheist group on her Facebook page.

I had people telling me that the school can do whatever they want, because religious bigotry is totally legal if a person signs in a contract that they'll "act in a christian manner". Never mind that NO one has acted in a truly christian manner since that guy they hung on that cross a couple years back.

Religion should be illegal.

What's that about judge not lest ye be judged???

Their take was that it was about the cheap ass school trying to get out of
paying maternity benefits.


Some folks will justify anything if there is a buck involved.

Make the school administrators that fired her take a lie detector test about any premaritial sex they might have had.

If the administrators pass the test, she stays fired.
If the administrators fail the test, they get fired too or she gets her job back.

Hoo-boy. No way.

Elisabeth Hasselbeck rails against premarital sex on almost a daily basis on "The View", but when SHE was asked whether or not she had premarital sex with her husband, she refused to answer.

This is all about racism. The pregnancy was a convenient cover.

It's hysterical that the school asked her to drop the complaint and "consider the testimony of the Lord". Perhaps they need to read their own Bible first.

they asked - and she admitted it

http://www.wesh.com/news/23851131/detail.html

My statement was that the administration of the school would never admit to having premarital sex themselves. I was responding to a poster above.

It's tough to enforce a rule that most likely the 90% of the population who have sex in their lifetimes, not to mention the 70% who admit to having sex before marriage, can't abide by themselves.

It is the height of hypocrisy for christians to vilify a mother who had an extramarital affair. But then again, hypocrisy is what christians do best.