Posted on 12/07/2005 5:03:35 PM PST by Esther Ruth
Catholic Teacher Single, Pregnant -- and Now Unemployed Diocese Disputes Lawsuit Charging It With 'Pregnancy Discrimination'
By Jim Brown and Jody Brown December 7, 2005
(AgapePress) - A Catholic school teacher in New York who was fired for becoming pregnant while unmarried is contesting her termination.
St. Rose of Lima School in Queens recently fired pre-kindergarten teacher Michelle McCusker upon learning she had engaged in non-marital sex. With help from the New York Civil Liberties Union, McCusker has filed a discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She informed the school of her condition one month after this school year began, and two days later was told she was being terminated at the end of October.
McCusker tells the NYCLU she has been "devastated" by the school's action. "This was my first teaching position and I was excited and looking forward to the school year with my young students," she says in a press release. "I don't understand how a religion that prides itself on being forgiving could terminate me because I am unmarried and choose to have a baby." McCusker was hired under a one-year contract to begin teaching in September 2005.
Frank DeRosa, a spokesman for the Brooklyn Diocese, which governs the school, explains the decision to fire the unmarried woman. McCusker, he says, violated standards in the school's personnel handbook. According to the spokesman, that handbook "gives an outline of what is expected in terms of promoting gospel values and the Christian tradition as something to be taught but also as a reality to be lived." He adds that the newly hired teacher signed a release form indicating she had received the handbook.
Evidently that is not the issue, according to the NYCLU, which contends the school is engaging in "pregnancy discrimination." The acting director of the legal group's Reproductive Rights Project says the school fired McCusker "ostensibly for engaging in non-marital sex, but neither the school nor the Diocese ... enforces this policy against men." The NYCLU spokesperson asserts that applying different policies to men and women employees is "classic sex discrimination."
But DeRosa says that is not true. "We would not discriminate in any instance, whether it's a male or a female, if there's a violation of the agreement to uphold by word and action, in a sense, the gospel values in our tradition," he explains.
DeRosa says in the light of the McCusker case, the vicar for education in the Brooklyn Diocese has suggested amending the personnel handbook to provide alternatives to employment termination for similar situations in the future.
Let the immaculate conception jokes begin...
According to the spokesman, that handbook "gives an outline of what is expected in terms of promoting gospel values and the Christian tradition as something to be taught but also as a reality to be lived." He adds that the newly hired teacher signed a release form indicating she had received the handbook.
DeRosa says in the light of the McCusker case, the vicar for education in the Brooklyn Diocese has suggested amending the personnel handbook to provide ALTERNATIVES to employment termination for similar situations in the future.
I believe in the Catholic faith, forgiveness is based on acknowledging sin and asking for forgiveness.
I also believe this woman has done neither, instead going directly to GO and demanding $200, so to speak.
Regardless of her personal state, her ability to teach children and serve as an example of Catholic moral behavior is obviously compromised. But the good news is, there are many many jobs for Pre-K teachers in public and secular private schools where morality is not a requirement for employment.
My wife teaches at a Catholic High School. The teachers there are expected to espouse Catholic values. Unwed motherhood is not among them. PERIOD. It's unfortunate that this woman lost her job but what kind of example does it set to the children when the teachers are expected to teach the children that pre-marital sex is a sin and here she is unwed and pregnant? It's hypocrasy.
"Let the immaculate conception jokes begin..."
Apparently, the Virgin Mary would've had trouble getting a teaching gig at this school.
She could have gotten an abortion and nobody would have been the wiser. That is a worse sin than little kids seeing their unmarried teacher pregnant which does probably set a bad example.
The male teacher in the next room could have gotten her pregnant, and his job is not in jeopardy.
The bottom line is that rules are rules, and private schools are within their right to demand compliance with the terms of the contract. I uphold their right because worse things than an unmarried, pregnant teacher could be forced on religious schools.
A compassionate solution might be putting her on paid leave until she has the baby so her insurance will pay for the birth and let her have her job back when she "looks right" again.
I hope she has some friends who will help her through this difficult period and she finds other employment where she can make a good living to support her baby and won't be ostracized.
"She might have gotten the job at the behest of the ACLU just so they could make a big stink about this."
Seeing the ACLU under every bed would keep me up at night.
Repenting. The repentance process consists of feeling sincere regret or sorrow for doing wrong, confessing the sin, asking for forgiveness, making restitution for any damage done, and promising not to repeat the sin.
Restitution, in this case, would be quitting her job. Then she can be forgiven.
Perhaps she could have gotten an abortion, but if the school found out about it, they would have been right to terminate her for violating the schools' standards by that act.
If the male teacher next door impregnated her, and the school found out, he would have been terminated too.
It's not a matter of "looking right" it's a matter of morals. I'm glad she chose to carry this baby as opposed to murdering it, but it's not the pregnancy, per se that got her fired, it's her decision to engage in premarital sex. The pregnancy is just the concrete evidence of that immoral act.
If I steal a pack of gum at 7-11 but don't get caught, aren't I still a thief?
"I don't understand how a religion that prides itself on being forgiving could terminate me because I am unmarried and choose to have a baby."
I don't pay $3500 per child to have my kids taught by a slut. If one shows up knocked up at our school she damn well better get fired IMMEDIATELY, not 2 days later. And then she turns to the ACLU, lousy liberal. Who ever hired her should also be let go.
"She could have gotten an abortion and nobody would have been the wiser."
She could have stayed off her back and not had the problem. Or maybe get married and THEN have a child.
The Mother of God did not engage in sexual activity before marriage. Duh.
***"I don't understand how a religion that prides itself on being forgiving could terminate me because I am unmarried and choose to have a baby."***
How can a religious school that teaches abstinence and adultery is a sin allow a teacher to teach school when she got herself knocked up doing exactly the opposite of what the school teaches. Duhh!!!
Paranoid can be taken as derisive, to I avoid it. Seeing malevolence behind such things as pregnancy is a mindset needing a name, though, don't you think? Given the load childbirth places on a single woman, I doubt she would go into it as a means of testing her job security.
I lost all sympathy when she made that statement. She is deliberately being combative and money grubbing. Of course the Anti-Christ Lucifer's Union would jump in. I hope that lousy amatuer is enjoying his time in hell with all the other amatuers trying to dethrone God.
I'd suggest a re-reading of the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke.
O Kaaaayyy ... I was going to, now I won't.
"I don't understand how a religion that prides itself on being forgiving could terminate me because I am unmarried and choose to have a baby."
She was fired because she told her students about the out-of-wedlock pregnancy, if I'm not mistaken. She should have kept her mouth shut. A teacher's private life is his or her own business, but when they bring it to school, they invite scrutiny upon themselves. Particularly if it's a church-run school.
lousy amatuer = the pos who started the ACLU
You trying to be funny? Because you mostly just sound ignorant.
LET THE ONE WHO IS WITHOUT SIN CAST THE FIRST STONE!!!
well, GEEZ, it sounds like she was pregnant when she was hired. it's not like she didn't know what they stood for. plus i saw an interview with her and she looked ridiculous, blubbering into her triple chins, wiping watery red eyes and flopping her lank hair out of face.
Yours is a very compassionate heart. It's a rare thing to see.
Years ago if a women made this huge mistake and found herself in this shameful position, she would have quietly left her position and went off in shame so as to not disgrace her family, relatives, coworkers, the school etc., She would have had the child quietly, given it to a good family then returned later. She has no shame it seems. Her priorities obviously all wrong and not in the interest of being a good example at all to these children! She has been shown a hypocrite for claiming to believe one thing and doing another and all can see this and...still she proceeds with her case that she is being discriminated against.
Well, yea, that is exactly what I was going to say...but ya beat me to it.
She understood the rules...then broke them. She needs to stop whining and find another job to take of her baby.
Let me edit this and help her ... "I don't understand how a religion that prides itself on being forgiving could terminate me because I am an unmarried fornicator who wants a leadership position influencing the lives of children whose parents work hard to give them a private religious education with an emphasis on morality and virtue. Why shouldn't I have the right to express myself in any fashion I wish at their expense ?"
Exactly!
cretin
The Immaculate Conception and the virgin birth are two separate events neither of which is funny.
Yeah, well, you don't need to teach at a Catholic school if you are going to act that way...
I'm sure that Christ really appreciates your view of His mother.
Thank you. I have lived it with my children, bore all them in very unholy but legitimate wedlock. When people condemn sinners as they tend to do, it hurts, just like calling my daughters sluts which, I suppose technically they are, son did it, too. We do not have abortion on our collective family conscience and all have paid a very high price in terms of personal happiness because of it, but that is just our problem and we live with it day by day, trying to count our blessings in these difficult, troubled times for all.
My daughter has a Masters degree, and I warned her not to apply at any catholic school or religious school because she has a now-adult out-of-wedlock daughter who is one the only lights left in my life. Sometimes God can turn curses into blessings if we let Him.
I am told by a female catholic professional person who works with many catholic girls like this, that there are a lot of catholic families dealing with these and other horrible problems. Their natural tendency is to one of shame and to cover it up, put on a happy face at church, and not be able to confide in anyone about any of it. It just seems to me that they deserve compassion rather than condemnation.
Admittedly, the young teacher sounds somewhat naive or has put up a trial balloon; we can't know the exact circumstances involved in her pregnancy other than she did IT. All I know is that those who show mercy will be treated mercifully on Judgement Day. That is what the church teaches, and there is precious little mercy reflected in some of the posts here, but then I know what to expect.
Unless you have never committed the least little sin, people had better hope and pray for mercy, too, in this life and in the next one.
If you make a mistake and don't get an abortion, you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. It is extremely difficult to find a proper mate. How do you repent having a child you love? Being sorry for your sin means being sorry you did IT. Does that mean you wish the child never be born as well?
"No one threw stones at her. If anything she threw stones at the church, the Christian school, all the teachers who trusted her and hired her, all the children."
I missed that in the article.
YUK!
"Went off in shame..."? How about bringing back the letter A on women's dresses?
I am sick and tired of this thread where NO ONE is addressing the man who helped her get pregnant! What a bunch of double standard hypocrites!
The school has the right to fire her. But in typical fashion....the man is not, even in the general discussion, dealt with. This is the same hypocrisy that arrests prostitutes , but does virtually nothing to the "johns" who slime out of the sanctimonious suburbs.
Make up your minds!
Oh, to save you the time in flaming:
1) any comments re my screen name will only show your inability to make a coherent point.
2) And yes I know...we don't know in this casw who the father is.
That is not what I said. I wondered if the ACLU put a pregnant, unmarried girl up to getting the job with a Catholic School knowing she would be fired when it was discovered she was pregnant.
"I don't understand how a religion that prides itself on being forgiving could terminate me because I am unmarried and choose to have a baby."
This statement is certain proof that she is deeply ignorant or tragically stupid and, therefore, she is unfit to teach in a Catholic school. She should try the publik skoolz - where she can get tenure and the respect she deserves.
The irony is that if she had aborted the baby no one would be the wiser and she would still have her job.
Okay. It's paranoid.
How is it paranoid to ask a question? Do you know what the word paranoid means?
By the way, speaking of penance, which comes with forgiveness, consider her termination to be part of it.
It means seeing boogeymen everywhere you look. ACLU gets enough applications for representation that they don't have to go out creating business. Sh*t happens, and it happens abundantly. You needn't manufacture it.
Likewise if a male teacher in the next classroom had gotten her pregnant, he'd be gone as soon as that was discovered. (And if he was taking part in the child's life, someone would've found out.)
TS
The irony is that if she had aborted the baby no one would be the wiser and she would still have her job.
***
If she had aborted the child I think the children still would have sensed her ill spiritual condition and it's influence on the children still would have done it's damage, how could it not manifest itself. Bad trees do not bear good fruit.
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